


Test the Limits and Break Through

by EvilDime



Category: Captain America (Movies), Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Asexual Elsa (Disney), BAMF Elsa (Disney), Comedy, Crack, Crossover, Dimension Travel, Drugs, Elsa Needs a Hug (Disney), Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Innuendo, M/M, Maria Stark Lives, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, POV Alternating, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, a lot of bad guys dying in a lot of ways, nymphomaniac Anna, repeatedly melting Olaf, so much sexual innuendo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22024963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilDime/pseuds/EvilDime
Summary: Steve doesn't bring down the plane in his world's Arctic ice as intended; he crashes it into Elsa's ice palace, instead.The queen is not amused.
Relationships: Anna/original male character, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Peggy Carter's Husband
Comments: 15
Kudos: 77





	1. Arendelle

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo... My partner has no interest in fanfiction, has never even watched Frozen, and still one day surprised me with the spontaneous question: "Say, what if Captain America didn't crash his plane in the Arctic but in Elsa's front yard?" I kind of gaped at them, then ran with it. I didn't stop at crashing the plane in Elsa's _garden,_ though. :P
> 
> Beta: Poet-of-Babylon. Thank you so much! ^^

"I still don't know how to dance," Steve choked out.

"I'll show you how," he heard Peggy's response. "Just be there."

"We'll have the band play something slow." Tears were blurring his vision, but there was nothing to see anyway, except the white wasteland he'd been flying over for the past who knew how many minutes. "I'd hate to step on your toes..."

His last thought before he collided with the ground was of Peggy, of dancing with her, and of course there was music. His fast, supersoldier brain used the split second before impact, though, to wonder why it would come up with such strange lyrics for the song they were dancing to.

_"A kingdom of isolation_  
_and it looks like I'm the queen..."_

Then the plane hit the ground and Steve Rogers thought no more.

* * *

_"Let the storm rage on!_  
_The cold never bothered me anyway."_

Bang.

Elsa broke off abruptly and turned around to stare incredulously at the large, metal object wedged solidly into the side of her castle.

What. The blazes.

The castle shook, then slowly started crumpling and sliding off the side of the mountain. With an enraged shriek, Elsa jumped off the balcony and, directing a blast of ice to the ground below her, propelled herself out of the range of the avalanche. Huge clumps of ice and frozen ground shaken loose by the impact were now dragging her beautiful, shiny new castle off, spreading the pieces out in a messy track down the hillside and into the woods below.

Stunned, Elsa looked on as the odd metal thing bumped up against the first tree line and the tumbling mass of snow, ice and metal slowly came to a halt.

Her castle was gone.

Elsa screamed and let her anger take over. She reached out a hand towards the metal thing and hit it with an enormous, icy blast that cut it neatly in half. The two parts sagged to either side… and a blue man tumbled out.

"Huh?"

Elsa watched, fascinated, as the figure dropped to the ground, rolled down the hill a few steps, hit a tree and stilled.

Uh.

Had she killed him?

Carefully, she made her way down the mountain. She'd come up here to be alone, to _avoid_ hurting Anna, but really to avoid hurting _anyone_. It looked like she had failed yet again. Her face clenched in a tight grimace. She was so utterly useless.

Had she really thought just moments ago that her powers were a good thing? Building a castle, making a dress like it was no thing, that had been fun, that had seemed benign – but no. Even out here in the loneliness of the mountains, there were people for her to hurt, and she had unerringly found them.

Were there more people in that metal thing? Had she killed those, too?

Now running full out, she absent-mindedly changed her dress to a more practical pair of trousers as she went. She still felt a pleasant buzz at the ease with which she could do this… magic… but the moment she noticed, she suppressed it ruthlessly. These powers were dangerous and she should stop using them, right now!

Except… She might need them to revive this man.

"Elsa!" an all too familiar voice suddenly shouted.

Anna.

"Go away!" she yelled back at the silhouette of her sister emerging from the woods, accompanied by yet another strange man (was Anna going to marry that one, too?), a reindeer and… a snowman?

Elsa stopped, blinked. "Olaf?"

The snowman waved cheerfully.

"You're alive? - No wait, never mind. I don't want to know." Decidedly turning her back on her sister and the snowman she might have magicked into being, she instead refocused on the man whose existence she'd probably just ended. She was unaware of her trousers reverting to the blue dress as her subconscious evaluated the presence of strangers and decided on formal attire.

"Oh!" Anna exclaimed behind her as Elsa knelt down in the snow beside the blue man. She could see now that the blue color was a uniform of some kind, rather than his skin as she had first thought. So at least Olaf was for now the only unnatural life-form around.

"He's… he's breathing," she said.

"Who is this?" Anna asked, staring at the tall, muscular stranger. "He's rather good-looking, isn't he?"

Elsa buried her head in her hands and slowly counted to ten.

* * *

Steve gradually became aware of his body. His right leg throbbed with a dull pain and he had a headache. Not surprising since he'd just crashed a plane. What was surprising was the fact that he was still alive at all. Also, he had the most annoying tune stuck in his head. Might be enough to account for the headache, if, you know, he hadn't just _crashed a plane._

Someone took hold of his wrist. His body tensed up, but his head was still kind of a mess. His intended sharp command instead emerged as a wobbly fragment of song: " _Let it go…!"_

A startled gasp sounded from somewhere to his left and his wrist dropped to the bedsheets, free.

Steve slowly sat up, forcing his eyes to open as he went.

The view that met him was quite surprising. He seemed to be in a kind of log hut, together with a tall blond man, two girls, a huge… What was that thing? An elk? - and… Wait. No.

He must have banged his head harder than he thought.

Trying to ignore the snowman humming to itself in the corner furthest from the hearth with the merrily dancing flames, Steve elected to focus on the girl in the expensive-looking pale blue dress that had held his wrist a moment ago.

"Where am I?" he rasped.

"Oh! Here," she said and extended a glass of water to him.

Steve was a bit suspicious, but took the glass anyway. He needed water, and if they'd wanted to drug or kill him, they could easily have done it when he was unconscious.

He was surprised to find that, while he had been willing to die to save New York, now that it appeared he had once again survived against all odds, he was very enthusiastic about staying alive.

Although… He risked another glance at the snowman. It was now busy cleaning its non-existent ears with its own carrot nose. Maybe he wasn't actually all that alive.

If this was the afterlife, though, he had still yet to determine if he'd made it to heaven or to hell.

Right on cue, the brunette girl spoke up to answer his first question. "You are in a cabin a few miles outside of Arendelle."

Arendelle, huh? He'd never heard of it.

"Where is that?" he asked, voice now a lot smoother. He took another sip of water.

"Uh… north of the lands of Weselton and the kingdom of the Southern Isles," the girl answered, voice hesitant as though unsure what exactly he was asking. "Where are you from?"

"Brooklyn," he said. He was met with four blank stares – five, if you counted the ...elk...thing.

"In New York." Blank stares.

"America?" he tried.

"Well," the first girl said primly, "apparently you are from quite far away."

They'd never heard of America.

What the hell was this?

"Is this a test?" he asked, feeling transported back to his days at Camp Leheigh. Although a fake grenade was something he could understand a lot better than the pretense that somewhere in the world, people still existed who had never heard of America. Somewhere in the Arctic, actually, where he'd been sure no life existed at all. Admittedly, he'd heard of the Inuit, but they were supposed to live in igloos, not wooden cabins, and he didn't think they had tame elks either. Or whatever this thing was. His education had large, pneumonia-shaped holes in it, though, so who knew? They certainly didn't have those in Central Park.

Here he was, then, in a wooden house, with people and a pretty intelligent looking horse-like thing with antlers, and a walking, semi-intelligent looking snow- _Don't think about it._

"A test?" The blue-gowned girl frowned. "No, why would it be?"

"Well," he drawled, going full-out Brooklyn boy to seem more certain than he actually was, "there ain't no way you've never heard of America, lady. So whatever game you're playing, you'd better quit." He slung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

The reactions were…. surprising. While the blond girl merely blushed and averted her eyes, the other seemed to step forward with something like greed in her eyes. The man, who hadn't spoken a word yet, grabbed her arm and pulled her back, signaling at Steve to look down.

Steve risked taking his eyes off the trio for a moment and did.

Oh.

Oh shit.

With superhuman speed, he was back in bed and under the covers. "You stripped me?!"

"I did," the snowman spoke up and, good grief, it had a voice. Was it some kind of robot like in Bucky's pulps? "Kristoff said it was unseemly for Queen Elsa to do it herself, so I volunteered." He gave a happy wave.

"Er."

A walking, talking snowman. And a queen.

Sure, why not. At least they seemed pretty harmless.

Steve decided he wasn't getting anywhere fast with logic, so he settled back into the lumpy cushion and reconsidered his situation. The three people, one animal and one snowman all watched him silently.

"Let's start over," he finally decided. "I'm Steve."

"Oh! I'm Anna," the girl that had been openly staring at him hurried to answer. "This is my sister Elsa, that one is Kristoff, the reindeer's name is Sven, and the snowman is called Olaf."

Olaf waved one of his stick arms at Steve.

"Ookay," Steve said slowly. He decided to keep ignoring the snowman. He was still half-convinced it was a hallucination, anyway. Though if the girl could see it too, maybe all of them were equally unreal. "And which one of you is a queen? And of what country?"

 _A kingdom of isolation_ , echoed through his head as though in answer. He chose to ignore it.

"That's not-" the blond girl began, but was overridden by her sister.

"Elsa is the queen of Arendelle. Her coronation was yesterday."

Steve still didn't know what kind of country this Arendelle might be, but he thought he should probably bow or something. However…

"Forgive me for not being more respectful, your majesty-" that was the right way to address a queen, wasn't it? - "but I seem to be stuck in this bed for the time being."

Queen Elsa blushed again, then offered: "Your… clothes. They were torn, and blood-soaked. You had… wounds. So we had to take them off to care for… But…" She went a little wide-eyed. "I am not just making this up! You really had a large wound in your upper thigh! Anna, back me up here!"

"Yeah," Anna agreed with a slow smirk, "and what a thigh it is."

If Elsa was a queen, wouldn't that make her sister a princess? Steve had thought princesses were supposed to behave with a lot of decorum, but obviously not.

"Hush, you," Kristoff grumbled, but then confirmed the girls' words. "You really did look more dead than alive. Do you always heal this fast?"

Steve pushed the blanket aside a little to look at his throbbing right thigh. A thin, jagged scar graced the otherwise smooth skin, already beginning to fade. "Yeah, I do."

Pushing the blanket back in place, much to Princess Anna's disappointment, he looked back at Queen Elsa. "So you found me after the plane crash, took me to this cabin and cared for my wounds. But… you're a queen? Why do it personally? Why do you even care?"

Elsa's blush deepened. "I think I may be the one who got you into this state. I am deeply sorry."

"You?!" Steve laughed. "I hardly think so, your majesty. I was pretty certain this flight would be my last one. You might just be the reason I lived."

"Flight?" Olaf asked. "You can fly? - Can you teach me?"

Steve thought of snowball fights he'd had with Bucky when they were younger, but bit back the words. "I can't fly," he explained, "but airplanes can. I was in one, before it crashed."

Olaf looked disappointed.

"So these airplanes…," Kristoff began hesitantly, "if they crash, that means they don't actually fly? It's just like a giant projectile?"

"No, they usually really fly, and then land smoothly so no-one gets hurt," Steve corrected, wondering at these strange people that didn't know about America and didn't know about airplanes. Come to think of it, he didn't see a single electronic device in this hut. "Do you… uh… I hope I'm not offending you with this, but have you ever heard of electricity?"

Blank stares.

Of course.

"But how do they fly? What are they? Are they like… birds?" Anna asked, ignoring his apparently strange question.

"Are they magic?" Else asked, and there was a hint of fear in her voice.

"Not magic," Steve corrected, "just… electricity, fuel and, uh, I don't rightly know myself." He scratched his head. "Look, I'm a soldier, not an engineer."

"A soldier?" Elsa asked, eyes narrowing. "Are we under attack?"

"No!" Jesus. The young queen was suddenly radiating a kind of power that made the hair stand up on Steve's neck. And had the temperature in the hut dropped abruptly or was that just his imagination? "No, I'm the only one here. And I'm not even supposed to be here. Or you aren't."

He shook his head in confusion, then winced. It still hurt. "There were nuclear bombs on that plane," he said, then quickly explained: "Uh, that is, dangerous weapons. Someone wanted to attack my hometown with them. So I brought down the plane in the ice to prevent that. I thought no-one lived around here. I'm really sorry..."

Come to think of it, those bombs were still there. Steve imagined one of these hapless people finding it and trying to burn it or something. Ugh. "You should probably… try and bury those weapons or something."

What did one do with a nuclear bomb they _didn't_ want exploding?

"So you brought dangerous weapons to my kingdom," the queen concluded, glaring at him.

"As I said, not on purpose!" Steve defended himself. _Also, I don't think anyone around here would know how to use them._ He just so stopped himself from saying that part out loud. It seemed a bit offensive. It was fine if he considered the people of this Arendelle to be more backwards than an inbred hillbilly, but he didn't have to tell them to their faces. "I'll… I'll help you get rid of them, alright?"

Queen Elsa kept glaring at him for a while, but then subsided. "Very well." She turned away, probably intending to go and do queenly things, but her sister stepped into her path.

"So, he's conscious and obviously not maimed or killed. Will you relax now and talk to me?" Her arms were crossed, her tone nothing short of aggressive.

Steve settled in to watch.

Queen Elsa, who had looked quite imposing while she loomed over him, now seemed to shrink in on herself. "There is nothing to talk about."

"Nothing?" Princess Anna asked, "Nothing?! How about you being able to do crazy snow magic? How about the fact that you _ran away from being queen_? How about Olaf being alive?!" She gestured toward the snowman who beamed and waved happily.

Huh. So living snowmen weren't normal around here, either. Steve felt a bit of relief.

"I like being alive," Olaf interjected.

Everybody ignored him.

"You are the queen. We need you. - Also, you froze our entire kingdom and I kinda need you to unfreeze it again."

"I what?!"

"Uh… you brought winter back? Like, in mid-summer? Didn't you notice the snow?"

"There's always snow this high up in the mountains," Elsa weakly defended herself.

Anna gave her no quarter. "Yeah, but what about in Arendelle? The city is _white_ , Elsa!"

"No." Elsa's voice was the barest whisper. "Oh my word, no!"

Anna leaned in, triumphant. "So don't you tell me there's nothing to talk about!" She crossed her arms and victoriously raised her chin, clearly having gained the higher ground.

"But… I don't know how to undo it," Elsa said miserably. "I didn't even know I'd done it!"

Anna's aloof posture melted. "I'm sure you can fix this, Elsa. We can all help you. Let's just go back to the palace and -"

"No," Elsa said again, "no! I've hurt you before, when we were little. I'm dangerous to be around! I cannot be near so many people, Anna, I can't!"

What followed was a royalty-level game of "Yes you do. - No I don't." that got increasingly ridiculous the longer it went on.

Steve saw that Kristoff had leaned back against the wall, apparently also knowing better than to get between two arguing sisters. Like Steve, he was watching the quickly escalating fight with a mixture of fascination and disbelief.

"You kept us both locked up in the castle for ten bloody years because you were scared of yourself?!"

"You could have left at any time!"

Seriously? The men looked at each other. Steve raised a questioning eyebrow, which Kristoff answered with a shrug: I got nothing.

Steve closed his eyes for a moment. Magic was real. He had crash-landed his plane in a magical country that was stuck in the seventeenth century or something and had been cursed by its queen with eternal winter. Accidentally. Also, when he opened his eyes, there was a living, talking snowman off to his right, trying to sit down on the bed next to him and failing because its upper snowball kept sliding off the lower one whenever the angle approached anything steep enough for sitting.

What the hell.

Steve was seriously considering the idea that he hadn't quite died on impact and was now hallucinating from the pain of the crash while his body slowly froze in the Arctic ice. He should probably be more worried by this, but… If he had to die, then living in this fantasy until his heart finally gave out was a lot more appealing than being stuck alone in the broken remains of a plane somewhere in the Arctic's white expanse of eternal ice.

Even if enough of his body had survived that he managed to drag himself out of the wreckage, there was nowhere for him to go. And even if there were… Bucky would still be dead.

This, at least, was crazy enough to keep him distracted. And even, he ruefully admitted, a bit entertained.

"...deciding to get married to the first man you see just because he's semi-attractive and single? Good grief, Anna!"

"Well, you might have had some say in who I meet if you'd actually ever _been there_!"

The two royals were by now tearing at each other's hair, both of them looking frazzled, their voices panting and angry, and yes the temperature had definitely dropped. Steve pulled the blanket tighter around himself. He saw Kristoff inching closer to the bed and made a quick decision. Because, why the heck not?

Lifting the covers, he waved Kristoff closer. The other man indecisively looked back and forth between Steve, the two banshees rolling around on the floor, the reindeer and the snowman a few times before emitting a quiet sigh and climbing in beside Steve. By this point, he was shivering. Steve actually flinched when Kristoff's arm brushed against his. Jesus but it must be below zero in here! He felt his nose beginning to go numb and huddled more deeply into the blanket.

* * *

The fire died with a weak hiss and darkness abruptly descended.

Elsa let go of Anna's nose and straightened up. "Eh?"

Anna sat up beside her, fingers unclenching from where they had been tearing at her sister's blouse. "It's dark. What happened?"

"You froze the fire," Olaf happily proclaimed. He was curiously poking at the quickly deadening embers with his stick arm. A tiny spark sprang over and set his ...finger... ablaze.

"Oooh, pretty!" Olaf exclaimed.

"Olaf!" Anna shouted. "Put that out!"

Olaf 's face betrayed his lack of comprehension. "But why? I liked it. It's soooo beautiful!" His eyes never left the orange glow slowly chewing down his stick finger.

"It's burning you," Elsa slowly explained. "Don't you feel any pain?"

"Errr..." Olaf took a moment to consider that. "Nope. I don't think I do." He smiled widely.

"Alright then," Elsa said and began to turn away.

"What do you mean 'alright'?" Anna exploded. "He's going to lose his arm!"

"Yes," Elsa said, then continued slowly as though speaking to a very dumb, very young child. Which, considering when she'd last had an actual conversation with her sister before today... yeah. "And then we'll just get him a new one."

Anna blinked. "Oh. ...Okay."

They both turned around. And stared.

In what little light was left in the hut, stemming more from the moon outside the window than the glowy dot on Olaf's finger, the bed seemed entirely too large and misshapen. Also, it was shuddering at a high frequency.

"Kristoff, what...?" Anna began, only then noticing that Kristoff wasn't actually visible in the hut anymore. She looked at the bulging covers again, then at Elsa, her eyes large as saucers. "Do you think they...?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Elsa didn't even want to think about that, and as though to prove to herself that nothing untoward was going on under that blanket, she took two determined steps forward and yanked the blanket off.

Two huddled men and one miserably trembling reindeer looked back at her with identical reproachful expressions. "Do you mind putting that back where it was?" The stranger, Steve, growled. "Your friend here is nearly frozen solid and doesn't need the additional cold."

Elsa let go of the blanket with a horrified gasp. She backed up, bumping into Anna who had been leaning around her in order to catch a glimpse of the two fit men holding each other tight in Kristoff's bed - never mind the reindeer.

"Ouch," Anna commented when Elsa's elbow painfully connected with her nose.

"I'm sorry!" Elsa yelped in a strangled voice. "I didn't mean to!"

"Tell dat to my noth," Anna grumbled, only to realize that Else hadn't been talking to her. Her older sister was staring at the bed, wringing her hands and looking entirely helpless. Anna's heart melted at the sight.

"Elsa," she said softly, stepping closer. Now that her anger was ebbing off she became aware of the cold herself, and she got the sense that it was _emanating_ from Elsa. "Aren't you cold?"

Wide-eyed, her sister turned around to face her. "Cold? Are you serious? Anna, I _froze Arendelle!_ I don't think it gets much colder than that!"

"No, I mean… don't you _feel_ cold? Doesn't it bother you that the air in here is freezing?"

Elsa faltered. "I… I don't…" She paused, a look of concentration on her face. "I can feel that the air around me is not warm, but it doesn't hurt me. It doesn't feel like it can harm me." Looking at Anna with worry etched into every line of her face, she whispered: "I don't think I'm entirely human anymore, Anna."

Anna gulped. She opened her mouth to say something commiserating, though she herself had no idea yet what. But she was beaten to it by the good-looking stranger.

"Bullshit." Seeming to realize he had just cussed at a queen, the stranger's head turned an adorable shade of red where it was peeking out from under the blanket. "Pardon my language, your majesty, but that really is he biggest load of, uh, nonsense I have ever heard. Having unusual powers does not make you less than human. I should know. I'm not exactly normal myself, but unlike other people, I am still entirely human. And so are you."

"How do you know?" Queen Elsa asked, her voice hesitant as though not quite daring to hope.

"I've seen unnatural people," Steve said. "There was a man – and I use that term lightly – who could pull off the skin of his own face and his actual face underneath was red and had no nose. I don't suppose your face does that?"

Queen Elsa and Princess Anna gaped at him. The queen slowly shook her head.

"He was evil, too," Steve continued. "He wanted to hurt people, wanted to enslave the world and impose his own ideals on everyone. You plan to do that?"

Again the queen mutely shook her head.

"Much as I hate to take sides in an argument between siblings, I have to say you should listen to your sister, then. You're not evil or inhuman. You are just magical and a bit unlucky."

Steve hadn't made any positive experiences with magic in his life. His only frame of reference were the weapons Hydra had made with the help of the Tesseract. Howard might call it alien science, but to Steve it was still magic. Evil magic.

And yet looking at this tiny queen and hearing her guilt-tripping over what appeared to be an accident, Steve was convinced that this was different. The young queen meant well, she just didn't know how to use her powers yet.

"Is there anyone who could train you?" he asked. "To, you know, only freeze things when you actually mean to."

Elsa looked desolate as she said: "No. Nobody else has these powers."

Anna shook her head when Steve looked at her, and Kristoff was still shivering underneath the blankets, probably not hearing a word.

The strategist in Steve took over then.

"Okay then," he said, trying to sound positive and encouraging. "First things first. Do you know what you did to freeze this room?"

Elsa looked even more pitiful. "No… I just got angry and here we are."

Anna laid a hand on Elsa's shoulder. "Elsa, it seemed to me that the cold was coming directly from you, before. It's even worse now. But you're not angry anymore, are you?"

"No," Elsa replied in a small voice, "now I'm just miserable."

Steve frowned. "So the way to warm you up would be to cheer you up?" That sounded too easy.

Elsa looked unsure. Her sister had no compunctions, though. In a flash, she was on Elsa, one digit hinged into each corner of her sister's mouth, pulling her lips wide and yelling "Smiiiiiile!" into her sister's ear.

Elsa shrieked in mock-outrage and tackled her sister to the floor.

What followed was a furious battle, filled with pinches, nose-tweeking, arm-wrestling, shrieks and fingernails and teeth and tickles and …laughter.

This was worlds apart from the earlier sisterly fight. Then, they had both been furious. This, however, had all the hallmarks of the friendly rough-housing that happened between siblings the world over. Granted, usually it wasn't adult women so much as little kids that did it, but it sure looked and sounded the same.

…Except for those squishy adult bits that occasionally got in the way and made the fight interesting to watch in a way it probably shouldn't have been.

Steve thought the decent thing to do was look away, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do so. Rather, he looked on in fascination as the sisters wrestled on the floor, shrieking with delighted laughter like little children – and the ice that had been covering the inside walls of the cabin slowly receded. The fire flared back to life where Olaf was poking at it, taking his arm and some of his upper snowball with it.

"Oh," Olaf said in amazement, still not in the least disturbed by the goings-on, "pretty!"

The air got easier to breathe with every giggle, every headlock and friendly punch. Steve finally let go of Kristoff whose lips had regained a more natural color, lowering the blanket some to sit up and helping the _reindeer –_ huh – to exit the bed.

Kristoff was slowly sitting up beside Steve and joined him in observing the squabbling sisters. "Am I really seeing this?" he asked Steve.

"Yeah," Steve answered. "From what they were yelling earlier, I got the impression that these two haven't played with each other, nor anyone else, since they were real little. I guess they really only know how to play like little children."

It made sense, he thought. It was also one of the saddest things he had ever seen, and he'd just been through a war.

 _Touch,_ he suddenly thought. If Queen Elsa had been so afraid of hurting people that she kept entirely to herself, locking out even her own sister, she must be completely touch-starved. And since their parents had died when they were young, who else would have hugged her?

"You two need to hug," he said.

"Say what?" The sisters turned to him as one, which looked pretty hilarious given the way they were currently tangled up on the floor. Elsa's head poked up over Anna's bum while Anna had Elsa's left foot partly covering her face where Elsa had been trying to push her off, protecting her thighs from pinching.

Steve stifled a snort at the picture. He resolved to draw it later, though; this should absolutely be saved for posterity.

"Hug," he repeated. "The room has already gotten much warmer just from the two of you horsing around. I think if you want to unfreeze your country, your majesty," - he manfully withheld the snort that wanted to join the honorific - "the best way to go about it is getting yourself some warmth and affection."

Once again, Princess Anna acted before Elsa had even gotten through parsing his words. Steve had the suspicion that she was a highly tactile person, and she had been starving right along with her sister.

Anna didn't flinch when she twisted around underneath her sister until she could hug her properly. She hadn't noticed while they fought, but already Elsa's skin was so much warmer. It no longer emitted cold but seemed to draw it in.

"I think the gorgeous stranger is on to something," she whispered in Elsa's ear while she hugged her tightly. "You seem much warmer already."

Elsa, for lack of a better word, melted.

She hadn't been aware of just how lonely she had been feeling for so long. Ever since that day when they were little, when her parents told her to conceal her powers and stop feeling –

_Ugh._

She was feeling plenty now, a wealth of positive emotions, and rather than freezing things, she could feel the land thawing around her. It had been all wrong! She didn't need to stop feeling, that had only ever made it worse. She needed to hug, to laugh, she needed to be with her sister!

She grimaced. If she ever saw those stupid troll things again…

But for now, she hugged Anna back for all she was worth. "I'm sorry, Anna," she mumbled into her hair. "I'm sorry I was never there for you."

"It's alright," Anna murmured back. "You are here now."

"Aaaw…" Olaf's head said from where it was lying next to the hearth, the rest of him already having dissolved into a puddle, "this is so beautiful I could _melt!"_

* * *

The royal sisters joined forces to reconstruct Olaf in front of the cabin while Kristoff found Steve something to wear. He felt very much at home in the man's spare checkered shirt and sturdy trousers and gave Kristoff his heartfelt thanks.

Then, all six of them – including Sven the reindeer – started the hike down to Arendelle.

Elsa seemed anxious to get back to her hometown. Steve understood; it wasn't great for a queen to leave her country unattended in a crisis, and the recent midsummer ice age certainly counted.

"Don't worry," Anna tried to soothe her sister's nerves, "I left Hans in charge."

"Your boy toy?!" If anything, the news only made Else walk faster.

She was right to worry, too. When they got back into town, they noted several surprising things. The first development of note was the absence of any snow; in fact, Anna swore more fresh flowers were blooming than she remembered seeing before Elsa froze everything.

The second was a lot less benign. There were three huge ships in the harbor and it appeared that all of the palace's valuables were being loaded onto said ships.

Elsa stomped up to the pier, looking coldly furious in her icy blue gown. "What is going on here?"

The Weselton representative stepped forward, gesturing at two armed men to come closer. "My dearest ex-queen Elsa, as you can see, the palace is relocating to Weselton since it is no longer needed in Arendelle, this now being a province of Weselton."

"WHAT?!" That shriek was pure Anna. She dove past the elderly politician, straight at a fairly handsome young man standing behind him. Steve watched as she pummeled him with all her not so great power. "Hans, how could you! I trusted you to keep Arendelle safe, not – not _usurp_ it!"

Hans seemed entirely unimpressed, both by her words and her fists. "I am keeping it safe. Your sister is an evil ice witch and you are too young and, frankly, too immature to rule. It's better for everyone, really, if I take over and keep this little province safe. Weselton is backing me up... for a small charge." He frowned at the valuables steadily flowing onto the Weselton ships. "Much safer than if Arendelle was further left to its own devices, don't you think?"

"My sister isn't evil!" Anna shrieked. "How DARE you!"

"Enough."

Queen Elsa's voice wasn't loud, and still everyone in the harbor and possibly the rest of the city heard her. It seemed as though the wind itself was carrying her words. "Representatives of Weselton and the Southern Isles, you are hereby expelled from Arendelle. All trade agreements are void and will need to be renegotiated. These ships will not leave our harbor until every last jewel and chandelier has been returned to the palace. So mote it be."

The silence lasted for several long seconds, then it was broken by an ugly snicker. "And what army do you think will enforce your dictate, _your majesty?"_

The man thought he was talking to the frightened young woman who had fled the town in a panic the previous day. But somewhere between building her own castle, hugging her sister and being declared not evil by a handsome stranger, Queen Elsa must have found her self-confidence.

She laughed at him. "You may trust that the armed forces of Arendelle would be quite up to the task should I call for them. However, I feel that a simple expulsion of delegates who overstep their mandate does not warrant a summons of our soldiers. I can easily manage this by myself."

Upon so saying, the queen pointed at the water below her and it froze. "This bay will remain frozen up until our possessions are returned to their rightful places. Until then, enjoy your stay in Arendelle. Please note, though, that you are no longer welcome at the palace, so be sure to have some of your own coins ready to pay for your stay at one of our comfortable guest houses."

"I've had it with this charade," the Weselton delegate spat, enraged. "Capture the witch!"

The soldiers stepped forward. Elsa turned around, one arm raised; but Steve did not wait to see what magic she would wreak. "Please allow me, your majesty."

At her nod, he walked towards the two soldiers, a sweet smile on his lips. Their lances trembled nervously at his confident approach. In a heart-beat, Steve took hold of both weapons extended toward him, ripped them out of their owners' grasps, broke them in half and threw the pieces down onto the frozen bay. It didn't take a second and they were backing away. "The queen asked you to leave," he said pleasantly, cracking his knuckles.

"Y-yes, so she did," one of the men said, before both turned around and fled.

The Weselton delegate was left gaping at his frozen ships and useless soldiers. Behind him, Anna finally landed a good hit on Hans – between the legs appeared to be a very good spot, she noted for future reference – and, satisfied, stalked back to her sister's side.

"I believe we are finished here," Elsa declared and started moving toward the palace.

Steve was about to follow her when he saw Olaf glancing at Hans. "He looks frozen," the snowman observed, then concluded: "I think he needs a hug."

Steve raised both hands in a "stop" gesture, but either that sign wasn't universal or Olaf just wasn't paying attention. The snowman happily made his way to the shocked looking young man. Even as Steve finally turned to follow the queen to her actual, stone palace, he heard the rather unmanly, high yelp Hans emitted upon being hugged by a well-intentioned snowman.

"Look, he's moving!" Olaf shouted excitedly. "It's working, it's–" There was a sound like a fist hitting snow, then a fun amount of cursing and some baffled noises from Olaf.

Steve made his way up to the palace with a spring in his step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I haven't seen Frozen II yet; no spoilers, please.  
> 


	2. America

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personally, I like the first chapter best, but I think the rest are still fun to read. Hope you agree!

The years passed, and Steve slowly arranged himself with his new situation. He would never stop mourning Bucky's death and his lost chance with Peggy, but the ache slowly faded with time. His old life was gone, his friends lost to another dimension, and even if he some day found a way to return to his old world, they would all have moved on. Maybe the war had taken them all; maybe they had lived happy lives, gotten married and were about to have grandchildren now. Or maybe his old world had stopped existing the moment he left, being only a figment of his imagination. Who knew?

Steve sure didn't, and so he had thrown himself into making a good life for himself here in Arendelle. He split his time between training with the soldiers and working with the little kingdom's artists. In both cases, there was much to learn on both sides at first, but over the years, Steve ended up being just one of the guys. A particularly strong fighter, sure, and an artist with a very good eye for details, but still just another guy. It was comfortable.

While Steve had been mourning and settling in, Anna had kept pestering Elsa until the queen finally gave permission for Anna to get engaged. What followed was a whirlwind marriage with Anna giving birth to her first child exactly nine months later. Several more children followed right on the heels of that first one; Steve assumed herbal contraception was not a popular concept in Arendelle; or maybe in Anna's case, biology was just stronger.

The little ones were fun. None of them had Elsa's gifts, but all of them were extraordinary in their own right. Steve was a favorite uncle since he could lift them up and throw them up in the air or down into the bay on hot summer days better than anyone else. Also, he was often around since he had the official position of Second Royal Cuddler. Kristoff was First Royal Cuddler. It fell to them to cuddle Queen Elsa if she accidentally froze anything and Princess Anna was not available. Also, both sisters just plain liked having them around and Steve eventually got used to calling them both by their first names and dropping the honorific.

Olaf was… well, Olaf. Elsa had magicked him his very own perpetually snowing cloud that stayed with him until winter kicked in and returned on its own as soon as the temperature rose beyond the freezing point. It made him very popular throughout town in midsummer.

Elsa was still unattached but Steve thought she didn't appear to be missing anything. She had her sister and her official cuddlers close, and now that she wasn't pushing people away any longer, several more close friendships had developed. Also, she appeared to really enjoy ruling, immersing herself in the day to day running of her little kingdom.

Steve and Elsa had eventually taken care of the nuclear bombs together, Steve identifying the dangerous items in the rubble of the plane wreck and Elsa sealing them off in eternal ice in a deep cavern she then hid by making part of the mountain above it collapse. Elsa was nothing if not efficient.

"What happens when the ice thaws?" Steve asked.

"It won't," Elsa said. "Not while I'm alive."

"Alright," Steve said, impressed. "But what about after? I mean, I don't know all that your powers can do, but you do seem to age." Unlike him, he didn't say. "Albeit slower than average."

He hadn't talked to anyone about it yet, but it was his greatest fear that he might be immortal, doomed to stay young while his new friends and found family aged and eventually died. He would not be left entirely alone, this time – impossible with all those honorary nieces and nephews courtesy of Anna – but still, it would be miserable if everyone moved on without him.

Elsa didn't seem to notice his somber mood, concentrating on the problem at hand. She made some elegant gestures – Steve really liked watching her work her magic, it was beautifully artistic – then gave a satisfied nod. "There. I've tied off the spell. Now it should survive even when I'm gone."

That had been several years ago. Steve had been impressed then, but Elsa's control over her powers had only grown since. It had a lot to do with Kristoff introducing her to his troll friends. Steve had been rather shocked by their existence at first, but then he considered his surroundings, the circumstances of his arrival in Arendelle and his host's magic powers, and decided to just roll with it.

The trolls seemed to have a deeper understanding of the workings of the world they inhabited. Elsa was mistrustful at first, but once they had cleared the air and Elsa accepted that her parents had misinterpreted Grand Pabbie's words, leading to them doing the opposite of what the trolls had actually intended, she was at least ready to listen.

After Bulda enthusiastically congratulated the little group on figuring out the worth of hugging all by themselves, the ice was broken by a large, somewhat clunky troll group hug. Those guys had some pretty rough edges, physically as much as metaphorically, Steve thought. But they were overall a friendly and welcoming bunch.

Steve had rarely attended Elsa's lessons once his initial curiosity was satisfied, but he knew Kristoff often went to visit his odd family. So he was surprised when Elsa came up to him one day with a huge smile and proclaimed: "I think I've finally got it! I know how to send you back!"

Steve stared at her. "What. How?!"

Elsa lowered her eyes, a bit bashful. "I didn't tell you before since there wasn't much to tell until I figured it out, but Grand Pabbie has been helping me grasp the edges of our reality and remember the feel of the portal you came through. I have been working on this on and off since they first told me there might be a way to send you h-home." Her voice wavered on the word even as her eyes smiled brightly.

Steve was entirely with her on that uncertainty. He had a life here, friends, and honorary nieces and nephews. He had spent about as many years in Arendelle as he had lived in his first world. He had no idea what might await him on the other side. Could he really still call the New York he remembered 'home'?

"Do they…" He licked his lips. "Do the trolls know anything about what things are like in – in my world? Is everyone still at war?"

Elsa frowned. She didn't like the idea of sending Steve back into a war one bit. "They didn't say, but then I haven't asked. I first wanted to make it possible for you to go at all. Now that I think I've got the amulet right, I suppose we can take you to talk to them about whether it is a good idea for you to go back or not." She faced him, chewing her lip and looking like the insecure young woman he had first met rather than the self-assured ruler of a thriving nation. "Would you want to go?"

Steve felt his brow furrow as the conflicting feelings raced through him. "I don't want to leave Arendelle," he said. Elsa watched him, sensing there was more he needed to say. He swallowed, then went on. "But I have to know what became of my world, of my friends. I need to know if I have done enough to turn the war in our favor, if we are safe from Hydra."

Over the years, he had told Elsa, Anna and their friends all about his previous life. He had drawn pictures of Brooklyn as he remembered it to illustrate the stories of his childhood and the adventures he'd had with Bucky; of the girls dancing in the spangle circuit – and of course Anna had wanted to see him lift a motorcycle, so Elsa had made one from ice and Steve had dutifully lifted the bike with Anna on top.

This had led to a fun discussion about combustion engines which Elsa had eventually cut short by making the bike run on magic. Steve had described the bike he'd had during the war in enough detail that Elsa managed to even make the non-existent engine purr. It felt surreal riding the contraption through a country whose calendar currently showed the year 1857, but regardless, Steve was proud to have the coolest bike in the history of mankind. Pun intended.

Steve had drawn more pictures later on, of Peggy, and of the Howling Commandos, leading to several more inventive modes of transport on Elsa's part – ships, cars and even on one memorable occasion an open-roofed airplane all powered by Elsa's magic came to mind – but also the heavy topics of a war on a scale Elsa and Anna couldn't even imagine and of the loss of everyone Steve had known when he totalled that plane in the ice.

Steve figured it was probably sometime after that night that Elsa had first talked to Grand Pabbie about returning him home to his dimension.

Only it had been so many years now, he really didn't know if it could still be a home to him.

"You'll just have to go there and see, won't you?" Elsa had said matter-of-factly, then added bashfully: "It may be a bit presumptuous of me, but I made the amulet two-way."

Steve hugged her.

* * *

Three days later, Steve, Elsa and Kristoff made their way up the mountain to visit the trolls. They were happy as always to see their son and their apprentice and did not seem surprised at all to see Steve with them.

"We knew you would come," Grand Pabbie said as Steve was greeted warmly by the entire clan. "Elsa was so close to finishing, it was only a matter of time until she was ready to send you back."

"She has finished the amulet that will take me back to my home dimension," Steve agreed, "but I don't know if I should go."

Bulda tsked. "Look at you, dear, so good-looking, so full of love, and still unmarried? Of course you need to go back. Your heart is there."

Steve cringed. Peggy, of course. It wasn't fair to let her go on believing he had died when in fact he was living a peaceful, happy life… in another dimension. Although, what if she was happily married? Would it be fair to her to come back and endanger everything?

"I'm not sure the dame I gave my heart to still wants it," he said desolately.

Bulda chidingly shook her finger at him. "And you are going to risk missing your chance because of that? You'll risk your lovely young lady dying an old spinster because you couldn't handle the mere possibility of a rejection? Is that really the kind of man you are, Steven?"

The words smarted, as he was sure they were meant to. Steve had always prided himself on his courage and stubborn refusal to back down in the face of impossible odds. Being called a coward by Kristoff's mother - a being who spent part of her life as a literal _rock -_ was like having a bucket of ice water dumped over his head (which was a much more common occurrence than he had believed before coming to Arendelle). 

"Elsa," he said, resolve firming, "I absolutely have to go back."

She smiled sadly at him. "You do." Then she visibly perked up. "But I'm not letting you go alone! After nearly twenty years of ruling this country, I think I have earned a vacation. I'm coming with you!"

"Elsa!" Steve laughed, startled. "You're the queen, you can't just go on vacation."

"Says who?" Elsa replied. "I rule this country. Don't you think I know what I can and cannot do? I have all the right people in all the right places for this country to rule itself for at least a decade without my input. And if a royal is needed for anything, Anna is still here."

Steve winced. "She'd have loved to come with us."

"Yes," Elsa agreed, "but seeing as she is pregnant _again_ , I don't think that is really an option, do you?"

Steve blushed. He admired Torgrim's stamina for keeping up with this woman, he really did. She had absolutely picked the right man for the job.

"I am not pregnant, though," Kristoff cautiously interjected.

Neither, it turned out, was Olaf. And so it was a group of four that gathered in the inner courtyard to say their goodbyes. As predicted, Anna kicked up quite the fuss, but after Elsa promised to take her dimension hopping sometime after she birthed her latest offspring, Anna calmed down somewhat. Now she waved happily at them before all four travelers activated their amulets and they were gone.

* * *

The Arctic was just as cold as Steve had always imagined. His teeth chattered the moment they arrived and only stopped once Elsa began dispelling the cold in a four feet radius around her. Everyone except Olaf gathered close; he was busy munching on snow to see if it tasted different in this world.

The plan was for them to travel south to some small town in North America and stealthily snoop around a little until they figured out how to get Peggy's address and what year it was here - the trolls had said that time might progress at different speeds in different dimensions and Steve tried not to hope that he might have missed no time at all.

"Alright then," Steve said, failing to hide the apprehension in his voice. "Elsa, would you?"

Nodding, Elsa raised her arms and wove a protective sphere of freezing air around them. A lot of her magic was intuitive to her these days, but for the greater workings, she still liked the big gestures. And a ball of cold air that looked like a snow globe, held three people and a sentient snowman, and traveled at the speed of a fighter plane was some pretty advanced magic if Steve was any judge.

Elsa's traveling globe rose in the air and then they were off.

* * *

Peggy was awoken by a noise at her window. She sat up – and froze. There were several people in front of her bedroom window. Which shouldn't be possible, seeing as the bedroom was on the second floor and there was no balcony, no fire escape and their façade was too smooth to climb.

"John," she hissed, already holding the gun from her bedside table as she approached the window. "Wake up!"

While her husband startled awake and reached for his own gun, Peggy noiselessly approached the window from the side, trying to keep out of the intruders' sight. She was startled to find that the people appeared to be arguing rather than carrying out a smooth, well-coordinated hit. She was the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., surely whoever had ordered this knew better than to send amateurs?

_Well,_ she decided, _their loss._

Aiming her gun at the closest silhouette, she pulled back the trigger slowly, carefully, and fired. Her bullet shattered the window with a loud clatter of glass that seemed immense in the silence of the night. Less loud, but no less world-shaking was the sound it made as it pinged against a hastily raised shield. It had been decades ago and on another continent that she had last heard it, yet she would still know that sound anywhere.

"Oh my god," Peggy breathed, "Steve?"

"Uh, hi Peg," the man said, lowering his shield. "Please don't shoot, we, uh, come in peace?"

The voice was Steve, the shape was him, and that clumsy uncertainty whenever he was around her? Nobody could fake that. That was Steve Rogers as he lived and breathed.

_He lived._

"Peggy?" John asked, now standing beside her with his gun still raised at the strangers in front of his window. "Do you know these people?"

"I – I think so," she answered slowly. She made herself look away from Steve to check out his company. "Or no, I don't; not the lady in the dress, nor the man with the beard, nor the… the…" Was that a snowman? And did it just _wave_ at her?

Shaking her head to try and clear it, she decided to look at the fourth person again when she was more awake. "But anyway, I do know Steve Rogers. I'd know him anywhere." Her voice turned soft at the words.

She couldn't make out Steve's face very well in the dark but his eyes had that suspicious shine like they were brimming with unshed tears. "Peggy…" he said. Just that, but the word carried a wealth of emotion.

"Steve," she said, and for a wild moment, she felt transported back to the war, to that night at the bar where he had promised her a dance. Remembered the heartache she had felt as the connection broke and he was lost in the ice.

A warm hand slipped into hers, quiet, supportive, and there was John: The man who had helped her come back from the misery of losing Steve, who had listened to her sorrows, dreams and fears, who had stood by her side and helped her to become the woman she was today.

Her husband. Her love. The light of her life, the father of her children, her partner, her confidant. Her everything.

She looked at Steve again. Where she had seen the hope for something she had thought lost until this day only moments ago, she now saw a memory of something good; a different life she might have lived had things gone a different way. But they hadn't, and the life she was living now was a good one. There just wasn't room in it for Steve as anything more than a friend. She squeezed John's hand and leaned back into him.

Steve had silently watched her. Now he was wearing a sad smile. "I guess we missed our window, huh?"

"You show up to our date more than forty years late and you are surprised that I have moved on?" she said, making her tone playfully chiding despite the seriousness of the conversation. "Steve, this is my husband John. John, this is Steve Rogers, who used to be known as Captain America."

"A pleasure," John said automatically, then shook himself as though from a dream. "But weren't you dead?"

"The pleasure is mine," Steve said courteously, extending his hand for a shake. "I suppose it looked that way, but I just got… lost. I still can't quite believe... Has it really been forty years here?"

Peggy gave him an unimpressed look. "Do I still look thirty to you, Rogers?" She knew she was an old woman now and it would soon be time for her to hand S.H.I.E.L.D. over to her capable successor. She already had her eyes on someone… though she would need to work on her figures of speech if she wanted to court this particular agent as her successor.

"Not a day older than twenty," Steve answered with a flirtatious smile, the charmer. But then he turned serious and said: "You are still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, Peggy, and I will forever be sorry that I missed that date."

"Why did you?" Peggy asked. "I thought you were dead!" If Steve had been alive all this time, why had he never told her?

Steve looked down. Peggy followed his gaze and saw that he and his companions appeared to be standing on nothing more than thin air. And one of them still looked like a living snowman.

"When I crashed that plane," Steve finally said just when Peggy began seriously questioning her perception of reality. "When I crashed that plane, I must have sunk it right through a rift between our two realities. I did not land it in the Arctic, as I had expected; instead, I ended up in the kingdom of Arendelle."

"And destroyed my ice palace," the young woman with him interjected with a smirk.

Steve turned to her. "I said I was sorry!"

"You did," she readily agreed, "and teasing you about it still hasn't gotten old."

"It's been two decades," Steve grumbled. "Which reminds me." He turned back to Peggy. "Our realities seem to have a different time flow. When we left Arendelle, it was 1861, making it twenty-two years since I fell into Elsa's realm. But here it was more than four decades... I have trouble wrapping my head around that."

Peggy didn't know if she should believe any of what Steve was saying; but then he _was_ standing on air and accompanied by a snowman and, apparently, a queen, so who knew?

"It is 1991," she said. "We lost you forty-six years ago."

"Jesus…" Steve carded a hand through his hair. "So Grand Pabbie was right." The enormousness of that seemed to hit him all of a sudden and his knees gave in. He fell on air, completely silently; Peggy thought there should have been a dramatic _thump_ at the very least, but - nothing.

Then the snowman stepped closer to Steve and it _spoke!_ "Do you need a hug?"

"I do, Olaf, I really think I do," Steve said, and the snowman proceeded to press its stick arms to Steve's shoulders and the icy roundness of its body against Steve's chest. Even as he shuddered at the cold, Steve leaned into the hug. "Thanks, buddy."

The other man and the woman had been looking on with amused smirks, but now they bent down to add their own hugs to the pile. Peggy saw parts of the snowman dissolving and starting to drip. A puddle was forming at their feet – which were still standing on nothing, so that's where the puddle also ended up: hanging suspended in mid-air.

Peggy turned to John. "This is a dream, isn't it?"

John didn't look sure of anything at the moment; he shrugged. "Your long-lost sweetheart from the war turns up hovering in front of our window at four o'clock in the morning, accompanied by a talking snowman no less, and tells a tale of other dimensions? Would you think less of me if I told you I find that rather implausible?"

"I agree," Peggy said softly.

"I'm really sorry I stood you up back then," Steve said. "But maybe it's better if only one of us keeps mourning lost chances. Maybe you'll be better off not believing that this visit is real. I sure won't blame you. Just… let the past rest, will you? It's over, I'm fine and there's no need to give it any more thought." He looked right at her and there was still such _love_ in his gaze that Peggy felt herself choking up. "Just be happy, Peg, okay?"

Peggy gave a mute nod and Steve leaned into the window and breathed a soft kiss on her cheek. "All the luck in the world to you, Peggy." He took a step back and nodded to the lady at his side.

"Steve," Peggy suddenly found herself saying, urgently. "Howard is still looking for you, did you know that? He never once stopped looking."

Now it was Steve's turn to sound choked. "Huh, that's… that sure is something." He gulped. "Thank you, Peggy. For everything."

The three people and one snowman rose into the air and floated away as though they'd never been there. And maybe they hadn't.

Peggy looked at the shards of her broken window, then at her husband. She did not know exactly what had just happened, and her mind refused to take things at face value; but her heart was clear on one point: Steve Rogers was alive and well. And once she left the stage, the world would still be in good hands.

* * *

The Winter Soldier sped down the road toward his target. He knew his mission was to recover critical materiel and terminate the bearer, making the execution look like an accident. Easy. For some reason, his superiors also wanted the hit recorded on the conveniently installed security camera. Unusual, but not unheard of. The Soldier would comply.

At first, everything seemed to be going to plan. He successfully adjusted the angle of the camera and brought the vehicle containing the Stark couple and their cargo to an abrupt stop right underneath. But then, all of a sudden, things started to go horribly, confusingly wrong.

A transparent sphere, like a large glass bauble, appeared in the air, carrying four presumably living beings, albeit one of them did not look human. All four of them seemed to protest the Starks' execution. Before the Soldier had a chance to recover from his confusion, the sphere of… something dissolved and the four beings were standing on solid ground.

The Soldier raised his gun, but it was ripped out of his grasp by a hand that belonged to… to… The Soldier's eyes widened. Rather than duck the punch he saw coming a mile away, he extended his left hand to stop it, never breaking eye contact with the tall, blond man with the earnest blue eyes and continuously frowning face.

_I know him._ The thought hit him as certain and unavoidable as a lightening strike. It was suddenly there and would not be denied.  _I don't know who he is but I know him._

The man didn't appear to know him, though. "What did you do?" he was barking at the Soldier, pointing his own gun at him. "Did you just attack Howard and Maria? Did you?"

The Soldier wanted to answer the commanding voice, but his mask got in the way. All he could do was nod; so he did. Startled, the man took a step back and lowered the gun. "You… just admit it. Huh." The Soldier knew that he was currently at a disadvantage, held at gun-point by a presumed hostile. The tall man didn't _feel_ like a hostile, though. 

Very slowly, telegraphing his movement, the Soldier reached for his mask with his right hand, keeping the dangerous left one where the… enemy?... could see it. He unclasped the latch for his mouth guard, leaving the goggles in place for now.

"I… I know you," he rasped out. He hadn't talked yet on this mission except to affirm his mission briefing and it showed. His vocal cords hadn't entirely shaken off the ice.

The man's mouth twisted wryly. "I am not surprised. Mister Jarvis tells me they made a comic book series."

"Steve," a  female  voice shouted from the direction of the car, "one of them is hurt!"

The strangely familiar man cursed. "Kristoff," he said in a brisk tone, "take over from me." Another tall, blond man appeared and hesitantly took the gun from the familiar man's hands. The Soldier could tell at a glance the man had no idea how to handle the weapon. It would be easy to kill this one and either fulfill his mission or abort and withdraw.

The Soldier did neither.

Instead, he remained in place, both hands raised again and his mouth guard dangling off to one side. He needed to know why the… why this  _Steve_ was so familiar, and why the name made strange emotions unfurl deep within his gut. 

There was a lot of cursing back at the car, some muffled conversation, the sobbing of a hysterical female and a sharp, commanding voice putting a stop to it all. Eventually, all appeared to have been sorted and the blond man returned.

"Thanks, Kristoff," he said, looking surprised to see the Soldier still standing there. The Soldier mentally reassessed the man; he wasn't as naive as previous actions had seemed to suggest. " So," the man said, "who are you and why have you knocked Howard Stark into a coma?"

"Codename Winter Soldier," the Soldier found himself reporting as though to a superior. "Mission: kill Stark, Howard and passenger and retrieve suitcase from the back of the car.  Stage as accident." It was odd; this was like reporting to a handler, only the Soldier was pretty sure this man had never carried that designation. Maybe he was of even higher rank? 

Meanwhile, the female's sobbing had started again while another female was making soothing noises.  Out of the corner of his eye, the Soldier could just make out the  anthropomorphic white being exploring the broken remains of the car and occasionally lifting parts of the wreckage and waving them around like a toddler in a sandbox. 

The familiar man emitted a long, measured breath. "A kill mission," he repeated. "I admit to being confused. You appear highly competent -" something inside the Winter Soldier wiggled at the praise like a happy puppy - "and your mission parameters are very clear. Why are you giving yourself up to me?" There was no mention of the man's companions and the Soldier was glad to see that the other man was indeed as dangerous as he had thought: both of them knew that the other people present were non-combatants and that the Soldier would not have given himself up to any of  _them._

"I know you," the Soldier repeated.

"Great," the man sighed, then mumbled: "Saved by my reputation." The Soldier did not know what he meant by that, but before he could muster the courage to _ask a question,_ the man addressed him again: "So what do you want, now? Are you willing to switch sides? Who do you work for anyway?"

What did he want? The Soldier froze. Nobody had asked him that question in more than fifty years. 

"I… I want…" He broke off, incapable of formulating anything as an actual desire or request. Instead, he settled on: "Who are you?"

The man blinked. "Didn't you just say you know me?"

The Soldier clenched his teeth, frustrated at being misunderstood. "You are familiar. I know that I used to know you. But I don't know why or how. Are you a handler? A superior?"

"I… No," the blond man said, frowning, then snorted. "Look, son. You are what, maybe thirty years old? I went down in the Arctic in 1945; there's no way we could have met. I was never your handler, nor your superior. Now, if you want to follow me anyway, that's great. I welcome anyone having a change of heart and abandoning an employer who orders the murder of innocent, good people. If not, though -"

The Soldier had been shaking his head the entire time, and now the words once more burst out of him. "But I know you."

The man expelled a heavy breath. "Yeah, okay, fine. We're going to get Stark to a hospital. Are you going to come peacefully?"

The Soldier didn't even have to think about it. "I will." He slowly lowered his hands and took a tentative step towards the unnervingly familiar man. The man holstered his gun and nodded to the Soldier, signaling his acceptance of his surrender.

Together, they stepped closer to the car wreck, the comatose Stark and his passenger, and the rest of the familiar man's company. Stark was lying on the ground with his companion knelt beside him, still weeping; everyone else was gathered around closely. 'Steve' chivvied the Soldier closer to the tight circle. He approached the car, took a medium-sized briefcase from the trunk then joined the rest of their party. The same bubble as before snapped into place around them and a moment later, they were carried off.

_WOW._

The Winter Soldier knew he had seen a great many unusual and unnatural things in his career, and while he generally wasn't allowed to retain the details of his missions, a general feel for the nature of his tasks and for his own personality, such as it was, usually did survive. He was quite sure that he wasn't quick to startle or impress.

The ease with which this tiny person was working magic of a startling magnitude, however, impressed the hell out of him.

"Jesus, lady," he whispered quietly.

Steve's ears must be as good as his own; the man threw a peculiar glance his way, halfway between amused and speculative. "Never seen magic before, huh?" he asked. "Don't worry, Elsa isn't an evil witch."

"Good for you, Dorothy," the Soldier answered unthinkingly – then wondered at his own words. Where had those come from?

Steve seemed to recognize the name, however. He looked amused now. "Yeah, we're not in Kansas anymore," he said.

That felt right, but the Soldier couldn't have said why. Neither, apparently, could the rest of their party. "Who is Dorothy?" the magic lady asked suspiciously, while the other blond man said: "Kansas is right in the middle of your country, isn't it?"

"That's right," Steve told the man, then answered the 'good witch': "Back before the war, there was a story about a girl from Kansas who gets pulled into a different dimension by a tornado, where she meets a good witch and a bad witch and a lot of very peculiar people. Her name is Dorothy."

"Should we call you Dorothy, then?" the blond civilian suggested in a voice of good-natured teasing.

Steve bantered right back. "Only if you want to refer to Elsa as 'Glinda'. And who would you be, one of the munchkins? - Olaf is absolutely the tin man, though."

The Soldier barely registered it. His memory of the picture had been hazy before, rooted in his subconscious but outwith his deliberate grasp. Now, a specific scene rose from the fog and jumped out at him. A dusty old room with many rows of seats, a surprising burst of color on the heretofore black-and-white screen, and a scrawny punk sitting beside him who didn't see the difference and Bucky felt very sorry for him.

"At least you get to see this one in full color," he murmured, looking over at the witch, resplendent in her shimmering pale blue robe.

Steve gasped. "What did you say?"

The Soldier frowned. Had he said anything wrong? "I said: You get to see her in color." He was unaccountably convinced the man standing beside him was the scrawny, colorblind kid from his memory, though how that was possible he had no idea.

"Take off your mask." The order was quiet, but deadly serious.

"Steve, is everything alright?" the blond civilian questioned, while everyone had fallen silent at his tone.

"Take. Off. Your. Mask" was all Steve said.

The Soldier complied.

* * *

Kristoff had no idea what set Steve off, but something the assassin had said must have hit a nerve and Kristoff was unsure what to expect. Seeing the face of the man plastered all over Steve's portraits and doodles was certainly not it.

There had been a couple of portraits of the lovely lady Steve had been in love with during his war, rendered in loving detail with a lot of obvious fondness. Kristoff knew his friend still carried the lady's photographed picture in the locket he never took off. Hers were the man's romantic love, his dreams, his deep respect. But the sharp edges, the day-to-day affection, the focus of both Steve's happiest and his most tragic memories had always belonged to these brown eyes, that mouth with the curled lips, those strong cheek bones, that expressive set of eyebrows currently raised in a mute question.

"Barnes!" he gasped, at the same time Steve shouted "Bucky?!"

The sphere around them wavered and nearly dropped them back down on the road Elsa had been following. "Elsa, focus!" Kristoff shouted, looking over at his queen who was staring at Barnes with nearly as much disbelief as Steve was doing. Elsa caught herself – caught all of them, really – and stabilized the sphere. She slowed it down to a crawl, however, then slowly set it down beside the road.

She turned around to face Steve and the man who looked like his dead friend. With narrowed eyes, she looked at the stranger. "You can't be Bucky Barnes. So who are you?"

The man didn't answer, but he didn't have to. "He's Bucky, Elsa!" Steve said, imploring. Kristoff wasn't sure if his friend was trying to convince Elsa or himself. "Nobody could look so much like Bucky while looking nothing like Bucky!"

And Kristoff had to admit – there was that. If anyone had wanted to impersonate Bucky Barnes for whatever nefarious purpose, they would have chosen to portray a Bucky Barnes that Steve knew: a smiling, welcoming young man with a twinkle in his eye and a bounce in his step – not a cold-eyed, emotionless killer with a deep frown permanently etched into his features. If this man was trying to impersonate Bucky Barnes, he was failing spectacularly. There was none of Barnes's personality in his gait nor actions. However, there did seem to be things in the man's memories that only Bucky Barnes could have known; otherwise, Steve would not have reacted the way he did. And, well. The man had never claimed to be Bucky Barnes. In fact…

Kristoff narrowed his eyes at the man. "What is your name?" he asked him directly. Steve and Else fell silent, waiting for the man's answer with baited breath.

But the man did not answer immediately. He was shaking his head slowly, frown becoming more pronounced as he apparently processed their words. "They call me the Winter Soldier," he began. "I do not have a name."

Steve made as if to protest, but Kristoff, seeing the man wasn't done talking, laid a hand on his colleague's arm to hold him back.

"The name Bucky Barnes, though..." the assassin said ponderously. "It sounds familiar. Like you are familiar." Here, he looked straight at Steve.

"Bucky," Steve croaked out, and it was as much a statement as it was an expression of pain. Kristoff knew that Steve had zero doubts that this was indeed his old friend. And that someone had hurt him.

All of a sudden, Steve straightened up. "I used to be your captain," he told Bucky. "Are you willing to accept my command above all others?"

"Yes, sir," the assassin who might be Barnes barked out in what appeared to be sheer reflex.

"Good," Steve said. Then he turned to face the rest of them, including the wide-eyed woman sitting on the ground, one arm protectively splayed around her comatose husband's chest.

"Change of plans," he snapped out. "I need to know who the hell did this to Bucky, and that won't happen if we hand him over to the authorities. Mrs. Stark, I am terribly sorry, but will you allow me to do this? I need you to not press charges."

The poor woman looked back and forth between Steve, the assassin and her husband. It was clear to see that she did not like the suggestion at all. But she proved that none of Steve's tall tales of his fighting days were exaggerated when she closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath – then nodded. "I don't like this," she spoke plainly. "But I know Howard always had nothing but the utmost respect for you. He would have said yes." Her eyes narrowed. "I hope you will prove worthy of our trust in you, Captain."

"Ma'am, I'll do my best," Steve swore earnestly. "I will find out who gave the kill order, and I will make them pay."

"That is well, then," Maria Stark declared and looked back down at her husband, wiping a smudge of dirt off his cheek with her thumb. She was obviously done with this conversation.

Steve nodded to himself, gulped, and once more straightened out his shoulders. Kristoff always liked it when Steve went into planning mode. It was as though he could watch the puzzle pieces shifting and realigning behind his friend's brows, thoughts and calculations flitting through those clear and sometimes piercing eyes.

"Elsa," Steve said abruptly, turning to their queen and addressing her without any reverence whatsoever; Kristoff knew she didn't mind. The royal sisters treated both him and Steve – and Olaf, really – like family, and this was Steve's world. It made sense for him to make the first cut into the ice. "Could you please dress Bucky in something less conspicuous?" Steve asked. "Hide that metal arm, please, and put him in something like he used to wear – slacks and a shirt, you know the type."

Just as Kristoff had expected, Elsa did not question Steve. She frowned at Steve's friend for a brief moment, then made one of those elegant gestures that never failed to make Steve smile. Kristoff didn't take his eyes off Elsa and the assassin, but he thought Steve might be allowing himself a brief smile even in this tense situation. Elsa's magic always was beautiful to watch.

"Wow," Barnes said, looking down at himself in fascination as his frightening black get-up was transformed into the clothes Kristoff and Elsa both knew from Steve's many pictures. The metal arm vanished underneath an illusion of unblemished skin. Even with the long hair and the many frown lines etched into his face, the man looked so much like Bucky Barnes that Kristoff felt his last doubts fade. The expression of boyish wonder on the man's face as he watched the magic at work even made it hard, for a moment, to match this vision with the cold-blooded killer of a mere twenty minutes ago.

"Hi Bucky," Steve said, sounding shy.

The wonder faded from Barnes's features, replaced by a cautious look. "Sir," he answered.

Steve sighed. "Good as it gets, I suppose. Alright, Elsa, let's get going again."

Elsa nodded and lifted the sphere they were still all standing – or sitting – inside back up into the air, carefully increasing their forward momentum until they were once again flying down the road at the speed of a striking falcon.

Kristoff remained silent the entire time, but he sidled closer to Steve and wrapped an arm around his back in mute support.

Steve, for his part, never took his eyes off his long-lost childhood friend.

...And Olaf was melting into a slowly expanding puddle of water at the overwhelming amount of emotions filling the air. "This is so beautiful," the snowman declared happily before his eyes widened comically as his nose began to slide off his face.

"Olaf, pull yourself together," Kristoff admonished with a smile. Sniffling, Olaf nodded and did just that.

* * *

Tony entered the hospital with decidedly mixed feelings. He'd never gotten along with his father, and were this just about Howard, he might not even have come. His mother, however? He owed it to her to show up and be supportive. Even though it likely was his drunkard father's own damn fault that he crashed that car and got himself injured.

There was press in the lobby, though less than Tony would have expected. Apparently, the news hadn't quite made the rounds yet. He extricated himself from the clutches of the only three reporters and one photographer with his best serious look and a clipped "No comment." Howard's PR agents would be proud, he was sure.

Walking up to his father's room, Tony mentally prepared himself to be strong and supportive for his distraught mother. He swallowed down his own discomfort at being here, banished the calculations for his latest project to the back of his mind, and pushed down the handle.

All of his thoughts and calculations derailed.

…

…

_What?_

"Tony," his mother exclaimed as she turned around and noticed him, "thank you so much for coming!"

Her voice shook Tony out of his stupor. Raising both hands, he rubbed at his eyes vigorously. He knew he should probably have slept more than four hours combined in the last two weeks, but there just had been so much to do and…

They were still there.

Shaking his head like a faulty robot, Tony determinedly forced his brain to un-see the two war heroes, one anthropomorphic snowman and two good-looking strangers that were populating his father's hospital room, apparently keeping his mother jolly company. It didn't work.

But he knew they were not there, and Tony needed to refrain from worrying his mother. She didn't need to worry about his many drug addictions on top of worrying about her sadly not-so-departed husband right now. So Tony steadfastly looked past the unlikely mix of hallucinations and kept his eyes strictly on his mother's face. "Mamma", he greeted her, kissing her cheek and giving her a brief, careful hug. 

"Tony," she said again as she hugged him back. Then her arms tightened around his back and she started quietly crying into his shoulder.

"Mamma," he repeated, for once also helplessly reduced to a one-word vocabulary. He raised his eyes, searching for anything to help him out of this situation he was entirely ill-equipped to handle. His eyes not so helpfully landed on Captain Rogers who gave him a sympathetic look and sort-of tried to squeeze Sergeant Barnes's hand off in sympathy.

"Mamma, what happened?" Tony asked. Not the most tactful way to initiate that conversation, but right now anything would do as long as it distracted him from the very solid looking hallucinations in his father's sick room.

"It was…," his mother sobbed once more, then withdrew a little to look Tony in the eyes. Surprisingly, her gaze was furious. "It was an attack," she said shakily. Then, more firmly: "Howard and I were attacked by an assassin under orders to kill us both."

Tony startled. "What?! Who would do that? Why?? ...Was it someone from Oscorp?"

His mother's eyes glazed over a bit. "It was Hydra," she said, then laughed hysterically. "Can you believe it? The organization your father fought so hard to destroy, and which Captain America went into the ice to stop! They all fought so long and sacrificed so much, and for what? So that Hydra can kidnap the Captain's friend, brainwash him and send him after Howard. That's what! Oh, how I _loathe_ war!"

Tony had always known that his mother didn't like his father's business, but never because she stated it outright like that. It had always been in the little things, in the words she  _didn't_ say rather than the ones she did. Tony had known the score, and he was sure his father knew it just as well, but as long as his mother didn't address the issue outright, it needn't be talked about. 

A polite blind eye, that's what his parents excelled at. Both of them. His father quietly turned a blind eye to his mother's understated criticism while his mother made sure to be in another room and safely out of earshot when his father let out one of his moods on Tony.

Tony had thought he hated his father, and despised his mother.

But now that he was standing here in this hospital room, with his father in a coma and his mother in tears, he couldn't find that long-nurtured hatred. He felt pity for his mother, and as she was finally showing him her real, honest emotions, quite some affection. For his father, he felt no warmth. He did, however, feel outraged on his behalf and darkly determined to avenge him.

He just wasn't quite sure whom he needed to take revenge on. Because what his mother had just said didn't compute.

"Hydra? Mamma, what are you talking about?"

His mother was sobbing again, too distraught to talk. A deep voice took over the explanations in her stead.

"I am deeply sorry for this situation," a warm, yet firm voice said. "It appears that Hydra wasn't as thoroughly eradicated as we'd all thought, and somehow they got a hold of Bucky here and got him to attack your father. I cannot state often enough how sorry I am for that, but I am absolutely convinced he would not have done this had he been in his right mind and-"

Tony let the smooth voice wash over him, finding it oddly soothing in this messed-up situation. He wasn't really listening to the words, though. After all, what did a hallucination birthed from his own drug-addled mind know about anything?

"Oh, stop it already!" his mother suddenly snapped.

  
  


"Huh?" Tony said intelligently. "What did I do…?"

"Not you," his mother sniffed, rolling her watery, red eyes. " _Him!"_

Tony followed her gaze and saw Captain Rogers looking at Tony's mother with wide-eyed shock. "I'm sorry…?" the hallucination said.

"I said: stop it," Maria Stark repeated. "Stop apologizing, stop making excuses already, stop repeating how very certain you are he didn't mean to. I do not care, can you understand that? It matters not to me whether he willingly attacked me and my husband and got Howard into the hospital. It matters not whether he likes his employers or hates his capturers. One thing matters to me, and one thing only: Keep your promise. Find the one who ordered this and _make them pay._ Am I making myself clear?" 

"Yes ma'am!" Rogers barked and saluted sharply.

"Good," Tony's mother said with another sniff that fell somewhere between haughty nonchalance and a sad sniffle.

"Do you, uh…," Tony broke off, looking back and forth between his mother and the legendary Captain America. "Do you actually see  him, too?"

His mother looked at him in disbelief. "What do you mean, do I see him? He's standing right there!"

"Steve Rogers," the man introduced himself, holding out his hand for Tony to shake. A bit overwhelmed by the concept of his mother sharing his hallucination, and with a large part of his brain busily trying to calculate the likelihood of Captain America actually standing in this hospital room, Tony reacted on auto-pilot. He shook the Captain's hand, then allowed himself to be further introduced to: Bucky Barnes, a lady who was apparently a queen, a tall hunk of a man called Christoph and…

"No," Tony said. He turned away from the offered stick hand. "Mamma, please tell me that the walking, talking snowman isn't really there."

His mother gave a wet laugh. "I'm sorry, caro. But 'Olaf' appears to be quite real. Shake his hand, then try to tell me he doesn't feel real to you."

"I suppose we're not in Kansas anymore, huh?" Tony said, stunned.

Captain America and the other blond guy laughed, while the fragile-looking queen daintily covered her own smile with one slender, gloved hand.

Bucky Barnes, however, just stared blankly at them all. 

"Riiiight," Tony said, and shook the sentient, ambulatory snowman's twig. Then he turned around to his mother, deliberately facing away from the strange people and people-like beings, and said: "So what I'm getting from all this is that someone attacked you and dad and that nobody knows yet who gave the orders, but we suspect they are Hydra. Because Hydra somehow survived World War II and are still around. Correct so far?"

His mother nodded. "Yes. And also, Captain America and Sergeant Barnes are apparently not dead and one of them is the assassin Hydra sent to kill your father and I."

"Uh," Tony said, still trying to get a handle on this situation. He didn't _think_ that joint hallucinations were a thing, but then he wasn't a _medical_ doctor, just had a triple science doctorate.

"You don't believe me," his mother stated with a sigh. "You don't believe the evidence of your own eyes and ears; not even  what  your own hands  are telling you." Her eyes narrowed. "You don't believe them because they have let you down in the past.  Why do you think I can see them too, then?"

"Joint hallucinations," Tony muttered sullenly. 

"Antonio, are you so out of touch with reality that you  can't even trust in your interactions with other people? With your own  _mother??"_

Tony wondered hazily if maybe going cold turkey right the crap now was actually a valid life choice, no matter how horrible it sounded.

Unnoticed by the deeply troubled young man, his mother fixed the visitors with a hard stare. "Captain Rogers, thank you for protecting me and making sure my husband got the care he needed. I am in your debt. But it appears to me that you and your friend had better leave now. Because no matter how much I am inclined to believe that Sergeant Barnes did not do this of his own free will, the fact remains that he just attacked me and Howard and that Howard is in a coma because of him."

Captain America nodded silently. He and his friends huddled close together.

The commotion drew Tony's gaze back to them, just in time to witness a large, translucent sphere snapping into place around the five... beings.

"Would you mind getting the doors for us?" the lady who had been introduced as a queen requested.

Maria wordlessly opened the double doors to the balcony and stepped aside. The sphere hovered through, carrying the closely gathered four humans and one snowman outside. Captain America turned back to them. "We will find the ones responsible," he promised, "and we will make them pay for what they did." His hand was clamped tight on his friend's shoulder as he spoke and the grim set around his mouth left no doubt that the Captain meant business.

Maria nodded sharply.

Then the bubble rose across the balcony railing and quickly sped off into the falling darkness. Tony thought he saw the snowman wave happily back at them, but ruthlessly quashed the thought.

"Mamma," he swore quietly, "no more drugs for me. Ever."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! : )


	3. Hydra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a little more angst, some bloodshed and moral ambiguity. Also, more instances of nympho!Anna and some pretty blunt innuendo. Enjoy. ; )

Steve and his companions settled down in an abandoned stretch of woods where Elsa made them a simple igloo to shelter from the elements. As a nod to Steve's story, she made it look like one of the witches' houses from the fairy tales of his childhood Steve had sometimes drawn for her and Anna. Sadly, she couldn't actually create food, so anyone trying to eat the gingerbread decorating the outside walls and the roof would be in for a nasty surprise.

They shared their quickly waning rations, then each made their bed the best they could, with Steve trying to yield his bedroll to Bucky and the hard-eyed soldier refusing sharply.

"You know," Kristoff spoke ponderously into the darkness, "for a quick first trip to a different world, this is turning out to be quite the adventure."

Steve stared at the contours of his suddenly not-dead best friend in the darkness and broke out in helpless laughter. 

* * *

It turned out that Bucky, amongst his fractured memories, carried a wealth of information about Hydra's safehouses and strongholds in the U.S. The next day, any concerns they might have had about keeping themselves fed were laid to rest by a single visit to an empty safehouse, from which Bucky returned with more money than Steve had ever seen in one place.

The prices in the hospital café had already taught him that inflation had made a mockery of his erstwhile daily pay on the odd jobs he held for a few months at a time, back when he kept getting sick at irregular, sadly short intervals. But this must be a fortune even by today's inflated standards!

So the next night they spent in style at a mid-range hotel with its own bathroom, two large beds and a big television screen. Steve headed in first and rented the room, then went up and opened a window to let Elsa float up the rest of their company. There was no reason to announce their presence to the world at large and let Hydra catch wind of it, after all.

Olaf loved the television. Steve had to admit, the cartoons had made quite a leap since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the topics on the news channel were fascinating. Olaf, though, was sadly enchanted by the _advertisements._

"Steve, what is an alpha bit? Can I have one?  Why do people want lime juice under their armpits? Will it make them hug better?  Why should babies wear snow, and why only the ivory colored kind?  And who's Bill Cosby  and why does he hate clean teeth?"

Kristoff, for his part, preferred to take a walk outside and look for some nature.  Steve, torn between the need to watch over Elsa and make sure Olaf didn't try to climb into the screen and short-circuit the television or something on the one hand and the  equally strong urge not to let Kristoff head out alone wordlessly watched Kristoff adjust his coat, then head for the door. 

Steve didn't want to imprison his friend and Kristoff was a big boy; beyond a half-hearted "Watch out for those automobiles!" Steve let him go without complaint. It wasn't like he had any alternatives: Elsa clearly wanted to stay in, having claimed one of the beds and laying on her side,  eyes focused on Olaf. Steve supposed watching the snowman watching the television was more entertaining than the s how currently playing which appeared to be about…  a vampire biting a tree?

Huh.

Once upon a time he would have sent Bucky to watch over Kristoff, or maybe done that himself while Bucky stayed to protect Elsa and make sure Olaf didn't get into any  trouble. Now, that clearly wasn't an option. Even if  _The Winter Soldier_ didn't suddenly decide to murder everyone, there was every reason to expect that the moment Steve wasn't there to observe him, he would be out the window and vanishing into the night like a murderous ghost. 

Steve glanced at Bucky. His friend was standing at attention in a dark corner of the room, watching everything and never moving a single muscle.  Behind Steve, Olaf gave a loud cheer as  two men and a gorilla wearing a yellow propeller cap  came on;  Bucky still didn't move. 

Steve stepped close to Bucky. "At ease, soldier," he said softly.

Bucky slowly turned his head, staring blankly at Steve.  A puzzled crease appeared on his forehead, finally resolving into a surprised "Oh." All at once, Bucky's entire body seemed to slump, his shoulders rotating a little to work out some tension even as his head already dropped down toward his chest. Then he leaned back against the wall with a relieved little sigh. 

Steve stared.  It should have been obvious before, but with how rigidly Bucky had held himself, it had somehow been easy to miss. But Christ, Bucky looked  _tired!_ When had he last slept? Not since they met, Steve knew that; he had lain awake  last night, marveling at having Bucky back in his life, and so he knew for a fact that Bucky had never closed his eyes, either.  But this was more than a lack of sleep. There was also a weariness in his friend's eyes and his bearing, a part of him always staying awake and aware – and, Steve suddenly realized, always at attention. 

Did Hydra never allow their killer any rest?  Did they always require him to stand at attention when around others? What about when he was alone? 

Bucky's rough voice startled Steve out of his thoughts. "You used to be smaller." It had the cadence of a statement, but there was a clearly implied question in his words.

Steve laughed, he couldn't help it. "Yeah, and you used to be dead." His smile dropped abruptly. Actually, that really wasn't funny at all. " I'm sorry," he said, rubbing his face with both hands. "I'm a little off-kilter with all this… This new Hydra business, and Peggy married, and then Tony Stark, and you.  I didn't mean that the way it sounded. It's just… we had a conversation a lot like this when we reunited in Europe after you'd been kidnapped by Hydra the first time."

And wasn't that a thought.  How many times  more was Hydra going to kidnap and hurt Bucky? Once had been one too many, and yet here they were once again. 

_Never again,_ Steve swore to himself. 

Shaking his head to clear it, Steve focused on Bucky again, miraculously standing in front of him alive and, if not well, then at least still able to move and think on his own. Bucky had taken one glance at Steve and decided to abandon his Hydra orders. That had to count for something, didn't it?

"Anyway," Steve said, "you are right. I used to be about this tall -" He indicated with one hand held at about chest height. "- And always get myself into trouble." He gave Bucky a shy, sidelong glance. "You were usually the one to get me out of it."

Bucky nodded along like this made perfect sense to him. "Half the size of a regular guy but twice the trouble," he said slowly, pulling the words from some long forgotten corner of his mind.

Steve brightened. "Exactly!"

"You were a little shit," Bucky said, more confidently.

"Yep."

"And I was in love with you," Bucky continued, sounding entirely sure of himself.

"Y- wait, what?!" Steve stared at Bucky with wide eyes.

Bucky's still disturbingly impassive face stared back at him, as expressionless as ever. Behind his back, someone hissed a quiet "Yesssss." Turning around, Steve saw Elsa sitting up with a brightly flushed face. "I'm so sorry, Steve," the queen squeaked. "Just – Anna was so sure that you and your Bucky were lovers, but I thought that you would have said… So, Anna now owes me five gold coins, because my money was on you and your friend being equally shy, dumb idiots and quietly pining for each other rather than just spit it out."

"It's illegal in this world!" Steve exclaimed. He walked toward the bed Elsa was perched on, gesticulating wildly to let out all his pent-up frustration. "Propositioning Bucky would have meant so much trouble for him, I couldn't possibly…!"

Elsa smiled more widely. "So that's the only reason you never confessed your love to him? Because you _did_ love him and didn't want to get him in trouble?"

"Well of course it was!" Steve said sharply.

Elsa just kept grinning. "Or, in other words: Yes, you love him, too. Now Steve, repeat after me: Yes, Bucky, I lo-"

"Oh hush, you!" Steve mumbled. But when he turned back to risk a look in Bucky's direction, the assassin's stoic lack of an expression had finally crumbled. Bucky was now sporting a soft, wondering look that made Steve want to run in two directions at once: toward Bucky, to kiss his beautiful face – or away from him, to get his pencils and paper in order to immortalize for posterity what was currently being imprinted on his retinas, hopefully never to fade.

Damn, but what a sight. Bucky positively surprised, Bucky with hope for the future, Bucky in love! Never had Steve seen anything as lovely as that. And there was no way he could leave the words unspoken now.

"I love you, Bucky. I love you so much."

Bucky may be missing half his memories, maybe half his mind; but he had still recognized Steve. And, apparently, a part of him still knew exactly what to do once he finally got his man.

Feeling like a mouse cornered by a ravenous cat, Steve watched Bucky murder-strutting toward him across their little hotel room. Then Bucky's hand was on his shoulder, and his face was so close. The metal hand grabbed Steve's waist and pulled him in even closer; Steve _eeped_ a little, but went willingly.

And then they were kissing.

Steve didn't have much experience with kisses, so objectively, it couldn't have been the best kiss in the history of kissing. Steve was fairly sure he wasn't supposed to accidentally nick Bucky's lip with one of his front teeth, and where the in the world was he supposed to put his nose??

Still, it was apparently hot enough that Olaf started melting again, for Elsa suddenly hissed: "Olaf, not on the furniture! You are going to leave that bed absolutely soaked!"

"Soo-rry!" Olaf slurred, trying to pull himself together enough to sort of flop off the edge of the bed and down to the carpet. "'s just soooo romantic….!"

Laughing, Steve extracted himself from Bucky's arms, giving his friend – his lover? - a reassuring wink. He knelt down next to Olaf on the carpet and pulled the soggy snowman into a crushing hug. "Thank you for always being so supportive, Olaf! You're the best friend a guy could wish for."

Both of them ended up with wet patches all over, but neither being minded. Steve was confident that despite her dramatics, Elsa could be counted on to get him – and the bed – dry in no time. And Olaf? He was completely misshapen by now, half his upper snowball molten and his face partially demolished, as well. But the other half held a smile so bright it could have lit up half a football stadium.

"Sank you, Steve," he slurred through the still functional half of his mouth.

With a put-upon sigh, Elsa raised her hands and went about setting things to rights. 

* * *

Elsa and Kristoff didn't like blood.

This should not have come as a surprise for Steve; he knew they had never been in a war and there was no television and no theaters in Arendelle that might have prepared them for the reality of armed conflict. But somehow he had still failed to put the pieces together when Elsa suggested that she and Kristoff join him and Bucky on their first real attack on a Hydra base.

Elsa's plan had been genius, too: They sent Olaf in as a decoy. While the Hydra guard emptied their guns into the fairly impervious snowman and looked baffled at the sight of him, Elsa sneaked the rest of their party past their defenses, then allowed Steve and Bucky to jump out of her protective sphere and attack.

Kristoff had jumped out with them, and Elsa had raised her hands as though to command her magic to attack, but... Neither of them had moved beyond those first gestures. While Steve and Bucky tore through their enemies, working together nearly as fluidly as they had done in the past, the Queen of Arendelle and her First Royal Cuddler stood frozen to the side and just gaped at the spectacle.

Once it was all over and they were standing on a floor that had blood spattered across it and Hydra agents lying dead or comatose every which way, Steve looked at his queen and felt a blush creep up the back of his neck. "They... were enemies?" he said, suddenly aware how this must look to the Arendelle contingent.

Elsa sighed. "I do not blame you, Steve. But I wish there was a less violent way of dissolving this conflict."

Steve frowned. "I don't see how. Time has already proven that if we fail to eradicate them completely, they will just rise again. And if we left them for the authorities to deal with, they would buy their way out. Or, if they were imprisoned, some of them would eventually get out and just start over. It's the ideology that's the real problem, and I don't know how to wipe that from their brains."

Bucky flinched violently beside Steve.

"Buck?" Steve asked hesitantly. "What did I say?"

"'Wipe'," Bucky snarled. "You do not 'wipe' thoughts from a man's brain. It's painful, and it's wrong." Bucky stared straight at Steve's face. "I love you, Steve, but if you ever do what Hydra has done, I _will_ hurt you."

Steve gulped. "What have they done to you?"

Bucky glared.  _"'Wiped'_ me."

Steve blanched.  He wanted to ask more about that - and at the same time, he really didn't.  How could you 'wipe' a man's mind? What had they been doing to Bucky? 

Also, how was it that Bucky was still alive and looking nearly as young as Steve did  forty-six years down the line?

Those questions had to wait for a later time; for now, they needed to get out of here. Steve looked first at Bucky, then at Elsa and Kristoff. "Let's  destroy this place and relocate; then, we can talk in more detail about how to proceed in the future. Buck, is there anything we ought to save before we blow this thing sky-high?"

Bucky nodded and disappeared down a hall they had cleared earlier. Steve looked at Elsa. With a sigh, the queen gave him a nod and Steve sped after Bucky. When the two men exited the facility, each with a stack of files in their arms, they found Elsa putting the finishing touches on Olaf's restored face while Kristoff sat on a tree trunk staring off into the distant sunset.

"This world can be just as beautiful as ours," he mumbled. "And yet..."

Steve silently stood behind his friend.

"I know there are bad people in our world, as well. The Weasel comes to mind," he said with a hint of humor in his voice. The Mighty Squeak of the Prince of the Southern Isles as Olaf hugged him was still talked about throughout the realm. "But our nations are smaller, and we are not used to solving conflicts with bloodshed as your people are. And I wonder... How big is the world we live in? Will Arendelle eventually have to enter an age of war like your world has done, when the other nations around it grow larger and more demanding? Will we have to turn our little town into a fortress in order to survive?"

Kristoff was making some good points. What _did_ the world around Arendelle look like? In twenty years, Steve had never strayed far from the little palace town and the mountains surrounding it. Beyond a few huts in the more immediate surroundings, there was nothing but ice and snow and it was hard to imagine anything living there. Steve had a feeling that it was geographically at around the same height he had intended to crash his plane in his world, far up north, maybe past the arctic circle. To the south, the kingdom was delimited by the sea, which even in the height of summer wasn't really warm enough for a long, lazy swim. 

Obviously, Arendelle was not in immediate danger of a conquest from any of its borders. 

But what about the not so immediate future?  Would their world develop similar to Steve's, with people learning to cross the oceans at ever greater speed and with ever larger craft, and eventually taking their travels to the air?  Arendelle would very suddenly become a lot more accessible, then. 

At such a time, of course, a town whose main export was  _ice_ would no longer be of interest to a war-faring nation, refrigerators presumably having long been invented by then.  Maybe Arendelle would be safe, then. 

Just as easily, though, some fool might discover gold in those mountains. Or oil. Or whatever else people at that time deemed important. And then what?

"Maybe we do need electricity, after all," Kristoff concluded sadly.

"No," Steve said forcefully. He had been a spokesperson for modern technology ever since his arrival in Arendelle, but suddenly he found the thought of the little town being transformed into a 'modern' city unbearable. "No, not for a long time yet," he said firmly.

Kristoff looked up at him hopefully.

"We don't know what's out there," Steve said decisively. "There may not be any threat at all. So how about this: When we return to Arendelle, we ask Elsa to take us on a world trip in one of her traveling spheres? Then we can contact other nations on our own terms and find out for ourselves how technologically advanced they are. If we manage an amicable first contact, war might not ever happen at all."

Kristoff visibly liked that idea.

"Agreed," Elsa quietly added her voice to the discussion, obviously having listened in without either man taking note. "But first, we need to make sure _your_ world is safe. And whether I like it or not, that means destroying this Hydra organization."

Steve held up the detonator in his left hand and cocked his head at Elsa.  They both knew that some of the people in the facility weren't dead yet and could be taken into custody. But... 

Elsa's lips thinned, her whole complexion hardening to something fierce and powerful. "Do it," she commanded.

Steve pushed the button.

* * *

It took the five of them more than a year to eradicate Hydra from the face of the earth. Only when there wasn't so much as half a footprint of a supporter's supporter to be found in the files of the last base they raided, they finally started to believe they might soon be done. They stayed an extra two months, keeping their ears to the ground and frequently communicating with Maria Stark, who in turn had a direct like to Peggy Carter's office. But there was nothing.

They were done.

Relieved, the five of them said their goodbyes to Maria and, cautiously, to Peggy. Their caution turned out to have been unnecessary; due to her frequent chats with Maria, Peggy was well aware these days that Steve Rogers was indeed still alive and so was Bucky Barnes. She barely even raised her eyebrows at the sight of Olaf.

"I will miss you, Steven," the old lady told him quietly.

"And I you, Peg," Steve replied. It was an honest reply, but it wasn't tinged with the sadness and longing that weighed on him a year ago. The universe had given him Bucky back, and with every day they spent together, more of Bucky's memories had returned. Steve didn't think his friend would ever be exactly like he had been back in Brooklyn, but neither would Steve. If nothing else, the war had changed them both, as had the serum. Whichever version of it Zola might have forced into Bucky's veins, it seemed to have made him just as long-lived and equally as hard to kill as Dr. Erskine's version.

They never talked about the five extra vials of serum Steve carried in his backpack. 

"Let us know how you fare, you hear me?" Peggy demanded.

Steve shrugged and looked down. "That's not really up to me," he confessed.

"We'll stay in touch," Elsa promised warmly.

Steve and Peggy hugged, then Peggy gave Bucky a soft kiss on his cheek. "You two take good care of each other for me."

They promised. Then they stepped back into Elsa's usual radius and watched the traveling sphere snap into place. One last glance at Peggy who was hugging her husband tightly, then they were off.

Elsa took them all the way back to the approximate place they had first appeared amidst the ice before risking the jump. Then she took a firm hold of her amulet, closed her eyes and focused.

"You said it's pretty damn cold there," Bucky said with a false casualty that belied his nervousness.

"Yeah," Steve admitted. "But it has no electricity. You're going to love it."

Bucky grunted, not entirely convinced but ready to trust Steve's judgment. No electricity meant no chairs, and as far as Steve could tell, that was a major attractor in Bucky's book.

Both a little nervous, Steve and Bucky watched the world around them disappear. For a moment, they seemed to be suspended in nothingness, then with a jarring lurch, they entered another reality.

Here, too, everything was snow and ice and howling winds. Arendelle was nowhere in sight.

"So... which way do we go?" Kristoff asked forlornly.

Elsa looked around, equally as confused, then determinedly raised the globe off the ground. Higher and higher it lifted them, until the cold had Kristoff, Steve and Bucky huddling close for warmth, while Olaf was pressing his cheek against the side of the globe to admire the view, as unperturbed by the biting cold as Elsa.

"There!" Elsa finally yelled, triumphantly. "Hold on tight!"

The three men clutched even more desperately at each other, knowing what would no doubt happen next. Elsa did not disappoint. The sphere descended toward Arendelle at a break-neck speed.

"Wheeeee!!!" Olaf was ecstatic. Elsa, too, seemed to be having the time of her life, judging by her exhilarated laughter. Steve cautiously opened one eye, then both, and found himself looking into the eyes of an equally hesitant Bucky.

"Just like riding the Cyclone, huh?" Steve said, his voice wavering only a little.

"You got it, pal," Bucky answered, not sounding entirely confident of the situation himself.

Determinedly, they averted their eyes at the same time and faced the ground below them. They watched with equal horror and awe as Arendelle seemed to fly toward them, growing from a small speck on the horizon to a terribly _large,_ _solid_ entity. 

"Elsa?" Steve said concernedly. "Elsa, you need to brake. EELSAAA!!!"

Completely unmoved, Elsa kept them heading straight for the palace, then pulled a killer brake at the last moment that had everyone but her stuck to the front of the globe like bugs on a windshield.

"Oops?" she said merrily.

Admittedly, nothing was broken and nobody was seriously hurt; but it was still with shaky limbs that the three men took their first staggering steps after Elsa landed the snow globe in the middle of the palace courtyard and let it dissolve.

"Ay, my nose!" Olaf lamented, holding up the two parts of his broken carrot. ...Okay, so one thing _had_ been broken in Elsa's speeder's maneuver; but that one was easy to fix. Elsa bent down and hugged Olaf tight. "I'm sorry, love. Why don't you head to the kitchen and ask Cook for a new one?"

Olaf brightened. "Do you think he'll give me one of those red ones? It appears to be midwinter, so it would be appropriate, don't you think?"

Elsa laughed. "Go, get!"

Olaf happily toddled off.

Turning around to face Bucky, Elsa spread hear arms wide. "Welcome to Arendelle, Sergeant Barnes," she said warmly.  "Do you think you might come to like it?"

Bucky was staring around at the palace and the glimpse of the town he could see past one of the walls. "I think I just might. It's like right outta one of our old fairytale books, aint' it, Stevie?"

"Sure is," Steve agreed happily. 

Kristoff sighed. "I love traveling, but man, it's good to be home!"

All four of them jumped at the sound of a door slamming open. "Elsa!!!" a blonde, mid-aged woman shrieked as she ran toward them, nimble as a hare despite her obvious baby-bump. "Ohmyword Elsa, it's been _ten_ _months!!!_ What have you lot been doing?" She took a double-take. "And who's tall, dark and handsome over there?", she purred. 

Bucky took an instinctive step back. 

Steve laughed. "Don't you recognize him, Anna? I've drawn him often enough."

Anna's eyes widened. "You don't mean..."

"You owe me five, sis," Elsa declared, sounding smug as only a triumphant older sibling can.

Wide-eyed wonder turned to abject despair in the time it took for a moth to flap its wings.  "Aw, no. They aren't a couple? Way to destroy my hottest fantasies, Elsa!"

Steve blushed bright red, while Bucky's face took on a mischievous grin. "Oh-ho, someone's into hot guys doing it together, huh?"

"Oh shut it, you," Steve mumbled.  "Don't encourage her."

"They are together," Elsa declared. "But it's a recent thing."

Anna grinned maniacally. Digging through the pockets of her winter robe, she withdrew five gold coins and pressed them into her sister's hand. "Happy to lose this one, as long as they are together now," she declared. Then she hugged Elsa tightly. "It's good to have you back, sis."

Elsa hugged her back just as tightly.  Then Anna made the rounds, hugging each of them in turn, lingering longest on Kristoff. "I missed you," she said softly. 

"Missed you too, little snow lion," he replied. 

"Where's Olaf?" Anna then questioned, only now registering the absence of the fourth traveler.

"He broke his nose and had to go find a new one," Steve said, blush slowly receding at the chance to needle someone else, "because  _someone_ has an incurable need for speed."

Elsa whistled innocently, convincing absolutely no-one.

"Speaking of which, though," she said, interrupting her whistling. "It's a good thing you didn't come along, we actually got into a lot of fighting." Holding up a hand to forestall her sister's eager questions, she continued: "But if it's been ten months, shouldn't you have pushed out that baby a long time ago? I thought you were on your last legs when we left."

"Oh, piffle," Anna waved her off. "Jørn marched out a few days after you left. But, well, you know me..." She didn't even blush. Steve shook his head. This girl, seriously. 

Elsa rolled her eyes, but then bent down to rummage around in the large box they had brought from Steve's world. It contained all the literature each of them had chosen - history texts for Steve, some sci-fi for Bucky, the love of which had slowly returned to him along with his memories,  and a number of engineering and physics texts for Elsa. Just in case, as she said.  She now withdrew another box, though, that Steve hadn't known anything about. 

His blush returned with a vengeance. 

"Here, these are for you," Elsa said, presenting her sister with the xxl box of johns.

"What's that?" her sister asked, curiously. 

"Steve's world has more ways of preventing pregnancy than ours does," Elsa said. "And since you have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the usual herbal mixtures do not work on everyone -"

"Oh Elsa I love you!" Anna screamed, once again drawing Elsa into a tight hug.

"So, how do these work? Do I have to eat them, wear them or...?" Anna babbled excitedly.

"As far as I understood it from what Bucky told me -" Steve glowered at his friend when Elsa said this, who pulled off a much more convincing innocent face than she did, yet still fooled no-one - "Torgrim is the one who has to wear them. One at a time, and you need to throw them out afterwards."

Anna's face fell. "It says '100 pieces' on the box. So... This only buys us one extra month?"

Steve gulped down on his hysterical laughter. Married for two decades, and Anna's libido still hadn't calmed down in the slightest! This lady was just too much.

Elsa put a soothing arm around her sister's shoulders. "This is just a sample box," she explained. "If you both like them and they work well for you, we can always get you more. I know how to buy these, and thanks to Bucky, we have more money from Steve's world than I could possibly know what to do with."

The corners of Anna's mouth rose hopefully. "Can you show us how to use these things, then?"

Else coughed. "Er, no. But I am sure Steve can..."

"No, no, no," Steve declined forcefully. "Since Bucky is the one who so helpfully suggested these, he should totally have the honor of explaining the mechanics to you and Torgrim."

Bucky rolled his eyes at Steve, but didn't look as daunted by the prospect as Steve had half-hoped. With a sigh and an internalized eye-roll at his own stupidity, Steve suddenly remembered that between the two of them, Bucky had always been the more out-going and much less inhibited one. He might even be looking forward to this!

"What is my life," he moaned and buried his face in his hands. While Elsa, Anna and Bucky just laughed at him, Kristoff emphatically patted his back. "I feel you, Steve. I feel you."

"But, you know," Steve said, perking up hopefully, "I've heard this can be practiced on a banana, or a carrot. It doesn't need to be the _real_ thing in order for a fella to get the picture."

Just then, Olaf came back from the kitchens with a somewhat unfortunately shaped carrot stuck in his face. It was, as promised, dark red. "Look at my pretty new nose!" the snowman yelled brightly.

Kristoff and Steve looked at each other, then dissolved in helpless laughter. 


	4. Avengers

"Steve! So good to see you! And queen Elsa, welcome. How have you both been?" Peggy smiled at the man and woman hovering in through her office window.

Steve and Elsa stepped onto the floor and Peggy watched their traveling Sphere dissolve. "Good, thank you, Mrs. Carter. And yourself?" Elsa said politely.

"Great, your majesty, thank you," Peggy answered just as politely.

"Oh, will you call me Elsa already!" the ageless queen ordered with an eye-roll.

"Her majesty's orders," Steve stage-whispered. "You better obey, Pegs."

"She is not my queen," Peggy said loftily, though her smile betrayed her. "But very well. Elsa. Welcome." She got up and turned her office door plaque to "Do not disturb", then let down her shutters. "There. Now we should be able to talk uninterrupted. What has been going on in your world since last we spoke? And why didn't you bring Sergeant Barnes?"

Peggy loved these update meetings, although she wished they would meet more than once a year. But after forty-some years of believing Steve and Barnes dead, she would take whatever she could get. It was good to have her favorite commandos back in her life, if only occasionally.

"Life in and around Arendelle has been… eventful," Steve said slowly.

"Master of the understatement," Elsa snorted very unladylike. "It's been chaos, utter chaos."

"How come?" Peggy inquired, secretly thrilled to hear a blue-blooded creature like Elsa express herself this way. Peggy had been raised in a noble family in ancient Britain, never would her parents – nor her grandparents – have allowed her such poor conduct. But then, Steve _did_ say that Elsa grew up mostly without any family but her younger sister, so…

"Well," Steve said, still slowly picking his words, "for one thing, there were the dragons..."

* * *

"Maria! How is life, how is the family?" Bucky asked, a few years later. 

"I cannot complain," Maria Stark said primly. Bucky knew she hadn't quite forgiven him for pinning her husband down permanently in bed, though it appeared she had accepted his apology by way of killing every last Hydra mook  any of the continents had to offer.  Nowadays, when he and Steve visited, she did not treat him with outright hostility and had even offered him the use of her first name upon their last visit. 

Of course, her husband's unwavering trust in and admiration of Steve might have something to do with it. Or maybe it was her immensely improved relations with her son since her husband had become unable to antagonize their child.  Whatever the reason, Maria Stark  acted unfailingly polite toward Bucky, and sometimes even welcoming. 

"Howard has finally accepted that he is not getting back into the business and has signed the company over to Tony." She quirked a dainty eyebrow. "Admittedly, there was a lot of teeth-gnashing, lamenting and complaining, but in the end, even Howard had to admit that there simply is nobody else qualified to lead SI the way Tony is." Her voice softened. "He's always been such a clever boy! It's a shame Howard doesn't want to see that."

Steve coughed conspicuously.

Maria's lips pursed. "Something you want to say, Steven?"

"Nothing, Maria. Nothing at all."

Bucky suppressed a grin. Steve had always been a lousy liar. "I believe what Stevie here is too polite to say is that we all know Howard can see perfectly fine that Tony's a dead clever boy; he just doesn't like the competition."

Maria's lips thinned as she pressed them together even more firmly, but something like a growl emanated from the back of her throat regardless. "You tried to kill my husband and did permanently remove him from the board of his favorite game. I don't think you get to judge him."

Bucky ducked his head low between his shoulders. Apparently she was not so over it after all. "Sorry, ma'am."

Steve wrapped an arm around Bucky's shoulders and tactfully changed the topic. "How is Tony handling all that?"

"Oh, better than anyone expected." A warm smile chased the bitterness from Maria's features. "We all knew he's a clever inventor, but he's always been so irresponsible! Howard never gave him the recognition Tony sought, and I believe that might have added incentive to his… less than stellar conduct. But now that Howard admitted, however grudgingly, that he does see Tony's worth, our beloved son's rebellion has crumpled faster than a law in Sicily. He's proven himself to be a fairly responsible leader, and a well-liked one at that. SI is flourishing!"

"I'm glad," Steve said with a smile. Then it turned mischievous. "He still believe we were just very convincing hallucinations?"

"Indeed," Maria said, allowing herself a quick smirk. "And don't you go disabusing him of that notion! The idea that he hallucinated his dead childhood hero talking to his mamma while his subconscious apparently contracted his other big hero to kill his father is a rather big deterrent from relapsing. Some days I think it's the only thing keeping him on the straight and narrow when the board of directors gets on his nerves." Frowning, she added: "I don't think he and Obie are ever quite going to see eye to eye."

Bucky could relate. He'd only seen the man once, from a distance, but that had been enough to evoke such a strong revulsion that he wondered, for a moment, if he had ever met the man while he was still with Hydra. But that was silly, of course. They had eradicated Hydra _and_ all their known supporters. 

* * *

"You're here without Elsa?" Peggy asked, surprised.

"Yeah," Steve said, looking around the ever-changing office. Today, Peggy had a very abstract piece of art on the wall behind her desk that made Steve's head spin. He didn't know if he hated the sharp angles or the fluid swirls more, and yet he felt a strange admiration for the way the painting broke with so many conventions in just a few strokes of the brush.

"Shall I get you a book on contemporary art for when you next come to visit?" Peggy asked, amused.

Steve blushed. "I'm sorry. Arendelle has a few artists, but their styles and subject matter are still very firmly in the 19th century. ...You asked about the sphere," he remembered, sliding a hand through the side of his vehicle hovering faithfully in the corner of the office where he had 'parked' it. "Elsa finally managed to tie off the spell in such a way that it can be entered and directed by any of us. It was high time she made us independent, what with Kristoff and Olaf going off to explore far past the North Mountain, and Anna being her official ambassador to the dragon riders, Atlantis, the herder folk of Gitara and the ostentatiously named warrior nation of the Green Comet." He huffed out a laugh. "Fascinating people though, especially their courting rituals."

"Oh? Do tell."

Steve blushed. "I'd rather not. Anna likes them, though, which probably tells you all you need to know."

Peggy laughed.

* * *

"...And we've found another Hydra cell. Can you believe it?! More than a decade passed and yet here we are, hunting Hydra all over again," Peggy ranted.

Else looked at her worriedly. "Is SHIELD compromised?" she asked.

"God, I hope not!" Peggy exclaimed fervently. "Though that latest pet project of my successor's is looking mighty suspicious, to tell you the truth. I am certain he is not Hydra, but I am not so sure about all the mouths whispering in his ear."

"Will you need help?" Elsa asked. "If so, let me know now. Steve will be back eventually, but he asked me to check up on you while he's on that storm wyrm hunt with Bucky on the southern continent. And I tend to take my obligations very seriously."

Else very determinedly did not think of the time when she ran away from being queen. That had been ages ago when she'd been young and immature. Sure, she still turned the inner courtyard into an ice rink every winter for the townspeople to skate on, and never turned down the opportunity herself – but that was just maintaining good public relations. She was way more sedate and reliable than in her moody, unstable youth.

"I think we've got this," Peggy said. "But thank you. I appreciate the offer."

_Famous last words,_ Elsa thought but didn't say. Yet Peggy Carter was a formidable leader, according to Steve, and although she may not be head of her organization any longer, she still had a veritably army of ears to the ground. If she said they would be fine, Elsa trusted the old lady to know what she was talking about.

* * *

"It's Tony!" Maria lamented. "They kidnapped my poor boy _weeks_ ago and the army still can't find him!!!"

Steve and Bucky looked at each other in horror. "We need Elsa," Steve said. "Maybe there is some spell she can -"

"I am sorry to interrupt," the mechanical voice of JARVIS announced from its speaker in the corner of the living room. Steve would never quite get used to the A.I., having met and liked the original Jarvis. He had to admit that the mixture of Tony's brand of humor and the old butler's British correctness had its appeal, though.

"What is it?" Maria asked among tears.

"It appears that Sir has managed to escape his captors. Colonel Rhodes reported that they found him in the middle of the desert, where he apparently crashed a sort of rudimentary flight suit."

"Flight suit?" Bucky asked in delight, while Maria happily cried out: "My boy, oh my boy!"

* * *

"...And so I dug out my old designs and handed them over to Tony," Howard finished, his burst of strength at the enthusiastic account leaving him the moment he finished telling his story. Steve helped the old man, aged far past his years, lie back down in his high-tech sick bed.

"That's really good of you," Steve said. "I am sure he appreciated it a lot."

Howard laughed dryly. "Oh, you know he did not! I squandered the chance of having my son look up to me a long time ago. Hindsight, eh? But, you know, I am reconciled with the fact of his hatred, just as long as he isn't going to die of palladium poisoning. Your serum and Tony, you're the two greatest accomplishments of my lifetime. To think I could have lost him to something as trivial as some entirely avoidable _blood poisoning!"_ He shook his head weakly. "Not that he would ever have told me about that, had Maria not caught him passed out in his workshop without a shirt on, that one time. Stubborn son of a gun."

"Yeah, I wonder who he got that from," Steve said with a straight face.

"Oh, hush, you," Howard grumbled. "Like you have any room to talk."

Steve grinned unrepentantly. "Touché."

Howard laboriously turned over to lie on his side and clutched at Steve's hand. "And how fares your Mister Barnes?" Steve had been relieved the first time he talked to Howard to find that the man did not blame Bucky for his murder attempt. On the whole, it was unfortunate that Howard rather blamed himself for not noticing that Hydra was still around; but for Steve's relationship with the Starks, it was a blessing.

"He is doing well," Steve replied. "He's gained a big part of his memories back, and he thrives on exploring the world around Arendelle. He seems especially fond of the Atlantians. Small wonder, what with them being the most advanced people around. They even have a kind of portal to yet another dimension! I have to admit, I'm pretty excited about that one, too. Can't wait to have a look at that thing myself. ...But yeah, I'd say Bucky is pretty happy living in Arendelle." He blushed. "And I'm happy to have him there."

"No longer happy with just cheese and bread?" Howard asked, his old eyes twinkling merrily.

Steve blushed. "Oh, hush you!"

* * *

Tony's kidnapping was the final straw for Elsa. The idea that the son of Steve's good friends had suffered so terribly and they hadn't even known about it for such a long time did not sit well easy in her stomach. She shut herself off from the world for long days that turned into weeks, then into months. Only occasionally did she leave her self-imposed exile to consult with the trolls, returning with even larger creases on her forehead, but determination etched into every fiber of her being.

Finally, at the end of the third month since Tony's return, she emerged triumphant from her resurrected ice castle and laboratory. "I present," she proudly announced to her friends and family, "the portal speaker!"

It was a set of charms on a necklace just like her spell for portal crossing, only these were set in a different color. But this set had a much different function. "We give on to your Peggy Carter and you keep the other one," Elsa said, "and you will be able to talk to each other across the veil between our two realities."

Steve reverently accepted the set of charms. "Elsa, I do not know how to thank you. This is wonderful!"

"Let's go try them out!" Olaf cried enthusiastically. "Who wants to go portal-hopping?"

* * *

"This is ridiculous," Steve said, staring open-mouthed at the flying space-whale on the TV screen. "We just come by to drop off Elsa's new communicator, and this is what we find?!"

"Maria," Bucky said, "that isn't _actually_ the news, that's just a movie. Right?"

Maria, pale-faced and with a shaking hand raised to her mouth, shook her head. "That's my boy out there," she whispered, and right on cue Iron Man whooshed into view and blasted a couple of aliens off their space scooter things.

"This is real," Bucky asked again, voice a stunned monotone. 

"It's real," Steve echoed. "Crap."

For a moment, the three of them just stared in mute horror at the scene displayed on the big screen in the Stark mansion's living room. Then Steve remembered his training. "Right. Bucky,  contact Elsa and Olaf,  and  tell them to  bring my shield.  See if Maria knows anything else about this.  I'll head straight for the fighting and let them know that reinforcements are on the way."

"Olaf?" Maria asked in disbelief. 

Steve grinned. "Never underestimate Olaf. He was one of our best weapons against Hydra back in the nineties."

While Maria just shook her head at Steve, unsure whether the solider was leading her on, Bucky grasped the offered pendant. "Be with you in a moment, Cap," he promised, then activated the pendant to talk to Elsa, who should currently be holding its twin.

"I better get going," Steve said to Maria. At her hasty nod, he boarded his traveling sphere and sped out the window.

Elsa had perfected their modes of travel over the years. Any of the royal family and closest advisors, including not only the Royal Cuddlers, but also Olaf, Bucky and Torgrim, were keyed into the traveling sphere magic and could steer them without Elsa's input. Meanwhile, the dimension portal pendants now functioned independent of location, allowing jumps directly from the Stark mansion living room to the throne room in Arendelle, voiding the need for a traveling sphere when visiting just a single location. Luckily, Bucky and Steve had meant to see Peggy after meeting with Maria and had brought a sphere along for that purpose.

Steve now used that sphere to break the sound barrier twice over on his way to New York. He arrived amidst the most chaotic battle he had ever witnessed. Aliens were flying all over the place on their odd scooters, while those giant space whales really were a thing that now existed in Steve's old world. Steve watched one such beast glide by below him, demolishing buildings on both sides as it went.

Huh.

Steve had fought dragons _while in league with other dragons_ in the eastern mountains of Elsa's world, he had vanquished and ridden a great storm wyrm and he had personally witnessed a Green Comet mating ritual; he'd thought he wasn't so easily surprised any more. But seeing these things invading _his_ home world? Yeah, no. That one was a lot harder to grasp.

For a moment longer, Steve hung suspended in the sky above Manhattan. Then  he forcefully shook off his wonder and focused on battle strategy. He located a large number of enemy combatants, ever increasing by a steady influx through a rip in the fabric of reality. The rip was apparently held open by a device located… on top of Stark Tower? That was unexpected. Steve didn't think Tony was the type to invite an alien invasion, so how had that one gotten by him?

As to Earth's defenders, Steve had already seen Iron Man on the TV and now he spotted Black Widow, her archer partner and, oh wow, the Hulk was present, too.  Steve had heard tall tales  about all of them. Peggy was  at once fond of these chaos troopers and slightly mistrustful of the whole idea Fury had  for a group called the "Avengers".  Whether it had been Fury's doing or one of the vagaries of fate Steve didn't know, but they were all here now, doing exactly what Fury had pictured  them doing: Defending the Earth from a humongous threat nobody could ever have expected. 

Steve steered his sphere to land on the roof behind Hawkeye. "Hawkeye," he barked. 

The man turned and drew on Steve.  Steve quickly raised his hands. "Don't shoot, I'm a friendly," he said quickly. "If you're on comms with the others out there, please let them know to expect unlikely support in the form of Captain America, Bucky Barnes, an ice queen and a being that looks like a snowman."

"Dude, what drugs did you take?" Hawkeye asked incredulously.  From his comm, Steve quietly heard Tony requesting what the holdup was. " There's a  stacked blond  guy claiming that, and I quote, 'Captain America, Bucky Barnes, and ice queen and a being that looks like a snowman' are on their way to help us. I'd claim he's a harmless crazy, except that he just floated onto my roof in something like a giant snow globe."

"The hell?!" Steve heard Tony's voice from the other end. "I've been o f f the drugs for  _twenty years!_ There's no way these hallucinations are still around!!!"

"Never been no hallucination, Tony," Steve said, loud enough for it to carry through the comm. " Blame your mother for the subterfuge."

An unfamiliar, female voice  said sharply: "Team, they are real. I read Carter's notes. Welcome to the fight, Captain. Good to have you."

For a moment, there was silence on the comms.  It was broken a moment later by a roar of "HULK SMASH!" Steve saw a far-off space whale go down beneath the hit of a giant green fist.  Then, with a soft  _Whooooosh,_ another sphere appeared behind his own and touched down on the roof, spewing out Elsa, Bucky, Olaf and five of the Royal Guard.

"Andvari!" Steve exclaimed, surprised. " Are you sure you want to join in this fight? It is even beyond the technological ken of my people."

"You are needed to join in the fighting, but somebody still ought to be there to watch our queen's back."  The old warrior gave him a wide grin that missed about half its teeth.  "Besides, 'tis glorious to die in battle," his voice boomed. " Let us not be excluded."

"Well-spoken," another voice boomed back through the comms. Looking around wildly, Steve saw a giant blond man being dragged through the air by an equally gigantic hammer. Huh, apparently the myths of the North God of Thunder having touched down somewhere in the USA had a little more meat to them than Peggy had believed.

Quickly assimilating this new information, Steve looked at Hawkeye questioningly, his team arrayed behind him. " Great. So, here we are. What's the plan?"

Hawkeye stared at him dumbly. "Um. Kill as many as we can and don't get killed ourselves?"

Steve sighed.  Bucky sniggered. " Oh hush, you," Steve said tiredly. 

Straightening up, he put Command into his voice. "Okay. Bucky,  you double up with Hawkeye on sniper duty. Stay above the fighting as much as you can, higher ground takes priority over maximum kills.  You need to be able to support the rest of the team  whenever they are close  to you. Elsa," he turned to the queen, addressing her the way she wanted to be addressed in combat: As a fellow, albeit magical soldier and not as a royal. "You need to find out how that portal works and see if you can close it. Also, we need spheres for each of us."

Elsa nodded and quickly produced three more spheres, granting Olaf and Bucky independence from her own.  Then she gathered her guards and the group sped off toward Stark Tower. 

"There's a surplus bubble," Hawkeye remarked cautiously. 

"A gift from the queen," Steve said brightly. "See if you can enter it."

Hawkeye cautiously reached out a hand; it went straight through the shiny membrane.

"Great!" Steve said. "She remembered to key it to you! Means you are now mobile. If you are getting swarmed, enter the traveling sphere and command it to take you somewhere else. Steering can be a bit tricky at first, but if you get swarmed, ending up in  Bucharest  totally beats dying."

"Wait, what. Bucharest?!" Clint asked, eyes wide. But Steve had already turned away from him. "Olaf," he barked. "I need you to fly among those weird folks on the scooters and confuse them as much as you can."

"Like  with Hydra?" Olaf asked gleefully. 

"Yeah, just like that," Steve said with a smile that showed too much teeth. " Lead them on a merry chase, alright? I promise Elsa will put you back together afterward."

"Yay!" Olaf said, hopped into his sphere and sped off – straight toward one of the giant space whales.

"You realize you just ordered a being with zero self-preservation skills to be even more suicidal than usual, right?" Bucky remarked dryly. 

"I'm aware," Steve said calmly. "But as I said, Elsa will put him to rights in no – oops."

"Oops?" Clint asked. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw him following the gazes of the two legendary heroes to find out the cause of their winces. He probably just so witnessed half a snowman tumbling to the ground, its stick arm clutching at its carrot, while the other half vanished beneath the teeth of the space whale.

Before Olaf's top half could tumble all the way down to the pavement, though, his sphere was restored around him and suddenly his bottom snowball reappeared. Looking up, Steve saw Elsa giving a sweeping gesture from where she was just landing on the roof of Stark Tower.

A metaphorical light bulb ignited for Steve. He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and yelled up at her: "Elsa, pepper!"

While Hawkeye just looked more confused – poor guy -, Bucky flashed Steve a wide grin. "Good idea, pal!"

A moment later, it was obvious that Elsa had followed Steve's suggestion and retrieved the pepper spray from her ever-present belt pouch. Steve couldn't hear the queen sneezing across the distance between their buildings, but he could clearly see the tiny snowmen appearing with each sneeze. Elsa equipped each of them with its own tiny traveling sphere and soon aliens all around them were looking around wild-eyed at all the undefinable, tiny, potential enemy creatures floating around. Some of them took up the chase immediately.

Steve saw Hawkeye grin. "Those scooters of theirs can't bank worth shit. If they follow those tiny globes around, a few of them are sure to smash due to their drivers' own incompetence." He scoffed. "It's like they've never seen a skyscraper before."

Steve shared the man's grin. Looking back up to the taller roof, he saw Elsa reach for her handkerchief and forcefully blow her nose. Then, once the sniffles had ended, Elsa took things one step further.

Steve and Bucky watched side by side as first one, then two, ...all told, _five_ snow giants appeared on the Tower's roof and took off in giant leaps to throw themselves into the fight. 

"Don't overdo it, Elsa," Bucky mumbled concernedly. He'd grown awfully fond of the tiny queen over the years and didn't want to see her  exhausting herself. 

_Zzzzzzapp!_

A shot from an alien weapon missed Bucky by a hair's breadth and with a wince, the three men on the roof remembered they had their own parts to play in this battle.

Bucky approached Hawkeye to quickly coordinate positions while Steve stepped back into his traveling sphere and sped off.

* * *

Loki stared at the tiny blonde woman with murderous intent. "How dare you interfere in my plans, mortal?"

The woman, far from intimidated, stared _down_ at him haughtily. How did she even manage that, she was smaller than him! "I will forgive your ignorance this once, sorcerer," she said calmly. "Your failing to address a queen as behoofs her station is no doubt not a matter of disrespect but just a sign of your ignorance."

"A queen?" he scoffed. "A queen of what? Some insignificant nation in this loathsome realm my brother has taken a liking to?"

"No actually," the woman said primly. "I am Queen Elsa of Arendelle, Ice Sorceress of the Northern  Union and Head of the Council of Equals of  _my_ realm!"

"Ice Sorceress?" Loki laughed.  This uppity little girl thought herself a sorceress? Oh, what fun! He was going to teach the girl her proper place. " Watch that hubris," he cautioned. "You are addressing a  _god,_ so show some respect."

"A god?" 'Queen Elsa' asked, one annoyingly perfect eyebrow quirked  in challenge. "Really. And what deity might you be? The God of Missing Right Socks? God of Virtue?" She had the gall to  _laugh_ at him! But the tiny queen was not finished yet. Rather, she  had only  just begun to gather steam for her derogatory rant. "The  God of Greasy Hair?  God of Hubris? Of the Pale-faced and Loud-mouthed?  The God of Sitting-back-and-letting-others-do-your-work?"

That did it. "I am the son of Odin, King of Asgard, and of Frigga, Sorceress Surpreme of Asgard," Loki growled. He hated his adoptive parents, but those were the names best known in this realm, so he figured he better lead with them. "I am also a descendant of the Frost Giants of Jotunheim and certainly a more powerful sorcerer than you will ever be!"

The moment he said it, he was aware of how childish he sounded, but the words were out. All he could do now was to back them up. Raising both hands, Loki prepared for a major summoning. His concentration was harshly broken, however, by the pearls of laughter emanating from the tiny queen, supported by the full-belly roars of her companions. "A frost giant?" the tiny queen laughed. "You?!"

Before Loki could give proper form to his outrage, the tiny queen had made an elegant gesture, then proclaimed with a smirk: "Look, _that_ is a proper frost giant."

Turning around, Loki saw a nightmarish white monster stomping toward him, howling like the north wind and staring at him with glowing red eyes. "Meet Marshmallow," Queen Elsa proclaimed sweetly.

Distracted by the unlikely spectacle of the indeed aptly named 'frost giant', Loki completely failed to notice the green rage monster approaching him from the other direction.

"PUNY GIANT," the Hulk huffed, then took hold of Loki and stared bashing him around.

* * *

Having left the presumptuous godling to the Hulk – and wow, was Elsa glad Bucky had warned her about that one being a likely participant in this event – Elsa made her way over to where a frazzled looking professor was fiddling with the device that appeared to be holding open that portal above them.

"Are you trying to open or close that thing?" she asked cautiously.

"Close it!" the man answered emphatically. "I may have been bewitched and built the thrice-cursed thing, but I'll be hanged before I allow it to stay open a minute longer!"

"Can we help?" Elsa asked hopefully.

"I don't -" the man said, but the rest of his words was swallowed in a sudden, loud _Whoooosh_ as Steve sailed in. 

"Elsa!" he called frantically. "The government has sent a nuke our way, I just heard it over Widow's comm! Can you freeze it the way you did the bombs on my plane?"

Just once,  Elsa had taken a  peak at  one of Steve's history books to see what  had sent her friend walking around like the living dead for the past five days. She kind of regretted it after what she read. But she had taken the warning on those pages to heart  and doubled her efforts toward uniting her planet in a friendly, peaceful community of equals. There was no way she ever wanted such a thing as atomic warfare anywhere near Arendelle!

And neither did she wish more of it on Steve and his people. Their own government, really? She could hardly believe it. But she could already make out the foreign object approaching the fight from a direction that had nothing to do with the aliens and their portal, and now the son of Steve's friends was rushing toward it in his flying metal suit. Ingenious, that, but not possibly enough to stop that supremely disgusting weapon.

Elsa summoned the wind to carry her words. "HOLD!!!"

Everyone froze. Elsa used the moment of general confusion to safely speed straight across the battlefield in her traveling sphere and reach the 'nuke' a hand's breath before Maria's son. "Tony, I've got this," she told him.

"You know who I am?" he asked, startled, totally failing to notice that he was losing his chance to get to the weapon first.

Smirking, she put her hands on the atomic warhead and froze its mechanisms. This round went to her. "I know a number of things about you, Tony Stark," she said, pulling the bomb into her sphere and anchoring it securely at her feet. "Like the fact that you were an adorable Captain America fanboy when you were little." Winking, she left him hanging there in mid-air and sped back to the roof of – heh – his tower. "Got it, Steve!" She announced, then winced at the reproachful glowers from the guards she had left behind.

"Great job, Elsa!" Steve shouted from where he was helping the presumed scientist bend something out of shape. "We're just about done here, I think."

Some gear snapped into place, or maybe out of it, and the light connecting the portal to the tower like a permanent lightning bolt abruptly ceased.

* * *

Olaf was having the time of his life. He was playing catch with these wonderful alien folks like he had done back on their first visit with those Hydra people, and the aliens were as eager to play as Hydra had been!

Olaf just had to fly his globe past a few of them and wave nicely, and right away they would start following him. It was great! Olaf had heard somebody say that the alien scooters didn't bank so well, but considering that he was flying a snow globe made by Elsa herself, it made sense that any other mode of transport would be inferior. Olaf tried to slow down a little when he made sharp turns - he was nice like that -, but his competitors didn't seem to take the hint. Olaf saw many of them smash into buildings when they took the turns at too much speed.

Oh well. Olaf was sure their creator would put them back together once they were done playing. Just like Elsa did for him.

For now, though, Olaf was going to follow Steve's orders and fly the best race this world had ever seen! He banked again - slooooowly - and heard the noise of several more alien craft smashing into a building behind him. He sadly shook his head, lamenting his competition's apparent lack of practice. But when he rotated his head a full 180 degrees, he saw that he still had a couple of aliens hot on his tail. And more were joining them!

Grinning maniacally, Olaf put on a burst of speed. This was so much fun!

The merry chase around Steve's hometown went on for a long time, but none of his pursuers ever caught up with Olaf. He was the king of the Manhattan air race! But, eventually, the game came to an end. It was quite abrupt - everyone just dropped out. Literally. Blinking in confusion, Olaf looked down at all the crashed alien craft.

Odd, that. He must have missed the end signal.

A long, searching look around showed him that some of his team were still stationed on top of the largest tower. He eagerly steered his globe that way. Surely Elsa could tell him if he would be disqualified now or if he'd still won his race. He hoped he'd won; he had done so well, and it had been such a load of fun!

* * *

"So," Tony said, looking around at his team and the odd group of people _Captain America_ had brought to the fight. "We did it."

Heads nodded all around, some with pride or relief, others just tired.  Somewhere behind them, the Hulk was still busy smashing the remains of a space whale into ever tinier bits, but for now, everyone ignored him. 

"We won?" the... snowman, for lack of a better word... asked. Captain America nodded at the creature with a fond smile. "We sure did, Olaf."

"Yaaay!" the snowman cheered, raising both its stick arms and  making all of its snowballs bounce. 

Tony snorted. Yeah, okay. Might as well just accept it.  Walking, talking snowmen were apparently now a thing that happened. In real  life.  He glanced at the one Captain America had introduced as a queen and found himself suspiciously eyeballing the not-so-friendly-looking ice monsters arrayed behind her and her guards.  "So are those guys, uh, part of your usual guard?"

"Pardon?" the queen said, very royalty-like, then did a double-take at the sight of her own monsters. "Oh, I suppose we no longer need these guys, do we?" She said, a bit breathlessly.  "Marshmallow, S'more, Cotton Candy,  Éclair, Vanilla - thank you for your services! I will call for you if you are needed again!" ...aaand the snow monsters just went 'Pouf' and disappeared. 

Tony took a moment to digest their names  and their sudden disappearance, then decided that no,  he did not actually need to know anything more about that.  Instead, he focused on Captain America again, who was standing there with an arm slung around his best buddy, Bucky Barnes, and grinning sheepishly.  "Sorry, we're a bit unique," the Captain said. 

"But effective," his Sergeant added.

"But effective," Captain America agreed.

"I'll give you that,"  _Natasha_ confirmed dryly.  It was still odd to think of her by that name, but Tony thought he was getting there.  The Black Widow continued: " I have to admit I was uncertain of the  former head of SHIELD's claim that you had returned to us in the nineties, but I can't say I'm disappointed the old lady was right about you."

"Peggy has always been a smart  dame," the Captain said with a smile as fond as if he were still smitten with her.  Tony was gearing up to say something scathing about that when Barnes stepped forward and kissed the Captain full on the mouth. 

"Do I need to worry about her, after all?" he asked in a dark, yet somehow playful growl.

Captain America laughed. "Nope, you got me for keeps, Bucky. No take-backs!"

And, huh. Dad had never mentioned  _that_ when he rambled on and on about how wonderful Captain America had been, and what a great leader he had been, and how devoted his Commandos had been to - eeew.  _Stop it, brain, stop it!_

* * *

They went to eat shawarmas.

It was odd, Elsa thought, being in Steve's world in one of her own dresses, seeing Olaf be himself, and even Bucky's metal arm was out on full display. Yet among these _Avengers,_ they barely even seemed out of place. 

"My lady," Thor was saying to her, "would you be so kind as to pass the hot sauce?"

Elsa gingerly reached past Steve's plate and snatched up the plastic bottle to hand it to the so-called god.  "There you are," she said politely. 

"Thank you, fine lady," Thor said, just as politely.  For a while, everyone munched on in silence.  Elsa thought she noticed the Black Widow giving Bucky the side-eye now and then and wondered what her beef with Bucky might be;  but she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts to give it any real thought. 

Looking once more at Thor, she found the man looking up at her at the same time.

"I wanted to-"

"Would you mind-"

Both of them broke off at the same time, then opened their mouths a second later to say in tandem: "Please, after you."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" Bucky growled, and Elsa was sure if they hadn't sat so far apart, the soldier would have bumped their heads together to try and knock out the stupid.

Kind of warranted, she had to admit.

"Very well," she said determinedly, "I'll be so impolite as to go first."

"Please do," Thor grinned at her, apparently pleased with her incentive. It was kind of sweet.

"So, my question is this," Elsa said, trying to formulate it in a way that didn't come off as insulting. "The people in this reality call you and that Loki character 'gods', but as far as I can tell you are just travelers from a different reality, like myself. Does that make you normal people or does that make me a god?"

Thor barked a startled laugh. "Well spoken, young lady!" His forehead gained some wrinkles while he then proceeded to give his answer some serious thought. "Hum," he finally concluded, "I must say that I do not know. The way our legends tell it, we used to interact a lot more with Midgard in the olden days, and since we had powers the people of Midgard did not, they pronounced us their Gods and started worshiping us."

Elsa sneaked a glance at Steve, sure he wouldn't like this version of his world's religious history. Steve didn't look perturbed in the slightest, though. Thinking about it, Elsa came to the conclusion that if you looked at it the right way, Thor's depiction of events absolutely did _not_ establish the Aesir as true deities; just dimension travelers like herself, as she had suspected. Powerful ones, true, but all the same there were no more wish-granting, fate-steering, divine powers bestowed unto them than had been given to her. They each had some form of magic - Thor his magic hammer and his superior battle strength, Loki his magic and trickery - but their powers were not god-like.

"Now,  _you,"_ Thor continued, ignorant of the thoughts tumbling about in Elsa's mind. "You are  a powerful sorceress who could give my brother a run for his money. I mean no offense, mylady; your prowess has been most welcome in this battle. You are not, however, an entity the people of this realm have ever worshiped, and as such, not a god."

"That's it?"  Andvari, the old guard, asked incredulously,  dropping his Shawarma in dismay. "All it takes to make a god in this world is for somebody to start worshiping you?"

Thor looked puzzled. "What else do you deem necessary, Soldier of Winter?"

"That's it!" the Black Widow suddenly exclaimed. She pointed a finger straight at Bucky. "You are the Winter Soldier!"

"Uh," Bucky said, giving her a wide-eyed look akin to one of Anna's children caught with their hand in the cookie jar. "No?"

Elsa had thought that Steve was the bad liar among those two, but clearly not. She sighed. This was going to be one loooong day.

Half an hour or so passed before Elsa remembered that Thor had had a question of his own. "Thor?" she asked, a little hesitant to start the conversation again, now that the conflict around the Winter Soldier had finally died down. But it never hurt to be polite. "What was it you meant to ask me earlier?"

Thor gulped down his mouthful of shawarma in a hurried way that looked a little painful. "Milady, thank you for asking!" he boomed. "I had meant to inquire, if I may be so bold, if you have a significant other, as the people of this realm say."

Elsa stared. Her brain finally reported back for service, though it was a little shaky on the details of what exactly was required of it. So, sadly, instead of just lying, she honestly said: "Erm, no?"

"How splendid!" Thor exclaimed.

Elsa blanched in the face of the Asgardian's enthusiasm. "But, uh, I am not looking to get engaged at this point," she back-paddled hurriedly. Really, was this 'god' courting her here and now, in the wake of that spectacular - and utterly exhausting - battle?

But Thor did his own bit of back-paddling. "I am not asking for myself," he corrected hurriedly. "My lady Jane would not look favorably upon such behavior. No," he said, regaining his smile, "it is my brother Loki who asked me to inquire on his behalf."

Elsa wanted to groan. Loudly. This day just had to keep getting better! Forcing herself to smile politely at Thor, she said in well-measured words: "I like men. As friends. But I am not looking for any romantic entanglements with one, not now, not ever. Alright?"

Thor looked pensive. "Are you aware that my brother is a shape-shifter? He could be a woman, if you prefer." When Elsa just kept looking at him stonily, he added: "Or, a horse? I think he has been a wolf once..." He gave Elsa a somewhat weirded-out look as he said it.

Elsa put her head in her hands and groaned.

* * *

Three years later, Elsa stood quietly looking out the window of her private chamber in the palace tower when a knock sounded at her door. "Enter," she said, just loud enough to be heard. Steve came in, joining her quietly at the window and looking out, as well.

"They are settling in well, aren't they?" he observed calmly.

"I believe so," Elsa agreed.

They watched for a while longer in silence before Steve spoke up again. "She is rather intense. And nearly your opposite."

There was a question in his voice that Elsa chose to ignore. "Hmm," was all she answered.

But Steve was not so easily deterred today. Stepping closer to Elsa, he put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close for a sideways hug. "They say opposites attract, did you know that?" he said softly.

"Hmm," Elsa made again, trying to keep her voice calm and unaffected. But... If she was being quite honest with herself, she did feel a weird kind of attraction. She had her reasons for not giving in to it, though. Maybe she should share them with Steve. "Let us see how she ages. I may not be as ageless as you and Bucky, but I do age slowly. And I have already lived several decades whereas she... If in the span of some twenty years, when it would no longer be considered cradle robbing for me to approach her, and _if_ it turns out she is as slow to age as I am _and_ open to getting involved with another woman, we can revisit this conversation."

"Elsa," Steve said softly. "I know you are very different from your sister. I know you care not at all about sex, and little about kisses. But I think you would very much like one more person to cuddle, and not just as family. Am I wrong?"

Elsa sighed, then looked up at Steve with a tiny smile hidden in the corners of her mouth. "I am not saying you are right. But I am not saying you are wrong, either."

Steve grinned. "So you are saying 'maybe'?" he asked cheekily.

"As I said," Elsa repeated, "ask me again in twenty years."

Steve accepted this. Elsa returned to looking out the window, and Steve peacefully settled in by her side to do likewise. Together, they watched the two siblings training in the palace courtyard, bolts of red magic lightning crackling in a dangerous staccato rhythm as the Scarlet Witch tried to zap her brother.

"Can't catch me," they heard Pietro shout, his voice tinged with laughter and exhilaration.

"We'll just have to see," Wanda answered in a low, threatening voice that made Elsa shiver.

"Yes," Elsa said softly, "we'll just have to see."

~ The End ~

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And there you have it, folks. Thanks for giving this craziness a shot! I hope you had as much fun reading as I had writing this.   
> Remember that any kind of feedback is nice; constructive criticism is especially welcome. ; ) And since I still haven't seen Frozen II, no spoilers, please!


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